Key facts
- Meta agreed to a $17.1 billion settlement with 29 states over child safety concerns.
- The settlement allows Meta to use children's data to train age-assurance models.
- States have agreed not to sue Meta under child safety laws for this data use.
- Meta must develop and test a model to detect users under 13 within one year.
- The settlement includes default two-hour daily time limits for users under 18 on Meta platforms.
- Concerns exist about the effectiveness of Meta's age-verification technology and the enforcement of data limitations.
Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over 10 years to settle a child-safety lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general. The suit alleged that Meta intentionally designed addictive features on platforms like Instagram, exposing younger users to mental harms and misleading the public about safety. The settlement, approved by District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, also includes provisions for Meta to implement default two-hour daily time limits on Facebook and Instagram for users under 18, mute notifications for minors during school hours, and block them overnight.
However, a significant aspect of the agreement allows Meta to use children's data for training and testing its age-assurance model, a move that has raised concerns due to the perceived flaws in the company's age-verification technology. The states have agreed not to sue Meta under existing child safety laws, including COPPA, for this specific use of data, provided it is solely for detecting and removing under-13 users and not for ad targeting or optimization. Meta must develop and begin testing this model within a year. Legal experts suggest this carve-out could complicate future enforcement actions and that policing the data limitations may prove difficult, especially given the potential for data to feed into other Meta systems over time. The FTC, which primarily enforces COPPA, is not a party to this settlement, leaving uncertainty about its stance on the compromise.