▲ Meta
Meta Platforms, the operator of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay about $16.7 billion (approximately 23.1 trillion won) and strengthen youth protection measures to resolve lawsuits filed by U.S. state governments alleging that the company induced social media addiction among teenagers.
According to settlement documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on the 26th (local time), Meta reached the agreement with 47 U.S. states and territories.
The settlement is subject to court approval.
Under the agreement, Meta will initially pay about $11.7 billion, with the total payout potentially increasing up to about $16.7 billion if other major social media companies, such as TikTok, YouTube, and Snap, reach similar settlements with state governments in the future.
The states with the largest allocations are California ($1.5 billion to $2.2 billion) and New York ($800 million to $1.1 billion), which spearheaded the litigation.
New Mexico and other states that previously secured separate penalty judgments through lawsuits against Meta are excluded from this settlement.
Through this agreement, Meta has decided to limit the daily social media usage time for users under 18 and modify its algorithms to reduce addictiveness.
Users under 18 will be restricted to a total of two hours per day across Facebook and Instagram, and nighttime access will be blocked from midnight to 6:00 a.m.
Such restrictions can only be lifted with parental approval.
If competing platforms also adopt youth usage limits, the daily time limit will be further reduced to one hour, and the nighttime access block will be expanded from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.
Additionally, during the school year, a "school mode" will be applied on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., disabling notifications except for direct messages.
In particular, teen accounts will exclude algorithms where artificial intelligence (AI) continuously recommends content, allowing users to select an "unpersonalized feed" that displays posts in chronological order only from accounts they have chosen to follow.
Meta must notify teen users that they can make this switch when signing up and every 90 days while using the platform, and parents will also be able to apply these settings to their children's accounts.
Furthermore, teen users will not be able to view reaction counts, such as "likes," on their own or others' posts, and photo filters that make users look like they have undergone plastic surgery or heavy makeup will be blocked.
Teen accounts will be set to private by default, and measures will be implemented to prevent unfamiliar adults from searching for or contacting teenagers.
Meta will build age-verification technology to prevent teenagers aged 13 to 17 from signing up for adult accounts by entering adult dates of birth, and develop AI models to block access by children under 13—who are prohibited from joining—to report the results of finding and deleting unauthorized child accounts every year.
Rob Bonta, the Attorney General of California who led the lawsuits against Meta, evaluated that "this settlement will make our children's lives on social media less dangerous and bring about a major change in the lives of children and their families."
C. J. Mahoney, Meta's Chief Legal Officer (CLO), stated regarding the measures implemented under the settlement that "they set the right direction for our entire industry to move toward," urging industry peers TikTok and YouTube to "immediately implement this new framework."
However, because the scope of the settlement is limited to participating states within the U.S., it remains uncertain whether these changes—including algorithmic modifications and restrictions on teen accounts—will be applied in countries outside the United States, including South Korea.
Initially, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was scheduled to take the stand in the trial, but as the lawsuit was concluded through a settlement beforehand, Zuckerberg was spared from testifying.
Sasha Haworth, executive director of the U.S. civil advocacy group Tech Oversight Project, welcomed the settlement while pointing out that "unless these protections are permanently mandated across all platforms, we cannot protect all children and teenagers," adding that "this is something only Congress can do."
She also criticized that "by refusing to testify, Zuckerberg has deprived grieving families of the opportunity to achieve justice," urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to summon CEO Zuckerberg to hold him accountable.
Families of teenagers who passed away due to social media addiction and other related issues welcomed the settlement.
Victoria Hinks, who lost her 16-year-old daughter, told the Associated Press, "It feels like something is finally being done today," and "It feels like justice might be served."
Previously, state governments filed lawsuits claiming that Meta intentionally designed addictive features to keep children and teenagers on the platform for long periods without adequately warning them of the risks.
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