Meta Will Pay Up to $16.7 Billion to Settle Its Social Media Harms Case—and That’s Not All
Meta has agreed to a massive settlement regarding lawsuits over social media harms to minors, including new platform restrictions like default two-hour time limits for teens. The deal follows significant legal losses for the company and aims to establish new industry standards for youth safety.
Why it matters
This settlement represents a major shift in how social media giants are held accountable for the impact of their algorithms on youth mental health and sets a precedent for future platform regulation.
Attorneys general representing some of the 29 US states that had taken Meta to trial announced the deal on Wednesday, shortly before Instagram head Adam Mosseri was set to return to the witness stand. In a separate announcement detailing the settlement, Meta urged YouTube and TikTok to adopt similar changes to their platforms.
The settlement is a stunning development; while other social media services, including YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok, resolved similar lawsuits out of court, Meta has repeatedly chosen to go to trial. Earlier this year, it lost state trials in California and New Mexico, notching nearly $1 billion in penalties. The company’s first federal trial on the youth issues began last week and threatened to leave the company on the hook for what it estimated to be over $1 trillion in damages.
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