Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, agreed on Wednesday to a settlement worth up to $18 billion to resolve legal claims that its platforms harm children. The agreement, which will be paid out over a 10-year period, concludes a trial involving 29 U.S. states. As part of the settlement, Meta did not admit to any wrongdoing but agreed to implement several technical changes to how its apps function for younger users.
The legal action was based on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a nearly 30-year-old federal law that regulates the collection of data from children under the age of 13. The trial lasted five days before the settlement was reached, ending before Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was scheduled to testify. Prosecutors had focused on the company's historical data practices and internal safety protocols, while Meta defended its record by highlighting more than 60 existing safety tools available on Instagram.
During the proceedings, former Instagram engineer and whistleblower Arturo Bejar testified that he had previously informed company leadership about harmful experiences involving children on the platform without receiving a response. Other evidence presented included internal memos suggesting that Meta sometimes opted to pay regulatory fines rather than change business practices, and that the company knew safety features were rarely used when they required a manual opt-in. While maximum potential penalties could have reached hundreds of billions or even $1.4 trillion, the final settlement was set at $18 billion.
The scale of the $18 billion payment, while smaller than the $1.4 trillion theoretical maximum, represents a significant financial commitment distributed over a decade. Beyond the financial impact, teen users will see a concrete change in their social media experience: "likes" on posts and content will be entirely hidden from their view. Meta has stated that these new measures will be most effective if competitors like TikTok and Snapchat adopt similar standards, setting a potential precedent for the broader social media industry's operations.
Meta is scheduled to roll out most of these default safety features and teen options within the next six months. However, the company indicated that developing and implementing more robust methods to identify which users are children will take up to one year. While the settlement was reached in a U.S. court, the changes may influence international standards as other countries monitor the effectiveness of these new safety barriers.
Arturo Bejar, the whistleblower, stated that the company must now be "held accountable for results, not efforts," regarding the implementation of these features. Meta continues to emphasize that it is focused on artificial intelligence, yet the settlement underscores its continued reliance on the advertising revenue generated by its social media user base. Following the settlement, the industry is watching to see if younger users remain engaged with platforms that have been intentionally modified to limit usage and engagement metrics.