Meta to Pay $18 Billion to Settle Lawsuit Over Teen Safety Concerns

Meta has agreed to settle a high-profile case over children’s privacy and social media addiction by paying up to $18 billion and making significant changes to its platforms. The settlement resolves claims from dozens of states that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users and collected children’s personal data without proper consent. As covered earlier, Meta settles major teen safety lawsuit with 29 US states addressed similar concerns across multiple states. A court still needs to approve the proposed settlement, in which Meta denied wrongdoing.

Key Changes to Teen Safety Features

The Meta teen safety settlement includes substantial product modifications aimed at protecting younger users. Meta agreed to set a default two-hour daily time limit for users aged under 18, with only parents able to increase those limits. The company will also block apps for young users between midnight and 6AM by default. Additionally, Meta committed to provide “clear prompts and notifications to teens every 15 minutes of continuous screen time” and to remind teens when they’ve used its apps for cumulative totals of 60 and 90 minutes each day.

Other protections include blocking notifications for under 18s overnight and during school hours (except for direct messages and security alerts), no longer displaying the number of likes or reactions on posts teens see, and banning “extreme makeup filters.” Teens will gain access to a non-algorithmic feed on Facebook and Instagram showing only posts from accounts they follow, and will be able to turn off autoplay. Parents can enable these settings by default on their teens’ accounts.

Industry-Wide Ambitions and Financial Terms

Notably, Meta said it will reduce the daily time limit to one hour and expand the nighttime blackout to between 10PM and 7AM if its rivals agree to do the same. “We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone,” the company stated, calling on YouTube and TikTok to join in setting time limits for teens. The company will pay 70 percent of the $18 billion settlement over 10 years to fund states’ online safety programs. The remaining 30 percent (around $5.3 billion) depends on YouTube and TikTok matching that amount and agreeing to equivalent protections.

The Meta teen safety settlement also requires the company to deploy enhanced mechanisms for teens to report harmful content and respond to 90 percent of those reports within six hours. Meta must improve its ability to identify underage accounts and remove users under 13 from its platforms, with an independent auditor monitoring these practices. The company is now subject to an injunction prohibiting false or misleading statements about its safety features.

المصدر: Engadget