Overview
- Meta reached an agreement with about fifty U.S. states that resolves lawsuits over harms to minors and includes roughly $17–18 billion in payments and a ten‑year compliance term.
- Under the deal announced in late August, Meta will impose limits for under‑18s including a two‑hour daily cap, a midnight–6:00 a.m. access block, school‑hours notification silencing, and parental control over those settings.
- About $5.3 billion of the payout is conditional on competitors committing to comparable protections, and Meta has publicly urged TikTok, YouTube and Snap to adopt the same measures even though those platforms have not agreed.
- The European Commission, which has investigated Meta since May 2024, has asked the company to propose similar open‑ended commitments for the EU and can make any accepted proposals legally binding or impose fines up to about 6% of global turnover if they are inadequate.
- Legal experts caution the U.S. deal applies only to signatory states and lasts a decade, so its long‑term effect depends on whether rivals follow suit or regulators in the U.S. and EU turn voluntary promises into enforceable rules.