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Meta’s $18bn Child Safety Settlement Could Trigger Wider Social Media Reckoning
Meta’s decision to agree to an $18bn settlement over claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children could mark a turning point for the social media industry.
The settlement, announced on Wednesday, brings an unexpectedly swift end to a legal battle involving 29 US states, which had accused Meta of violating children’s online privacy.
The case centred on the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, a law introduced almost three decades ago, before the rise of today’s major social media platforms.
Prosecutors focused on Meta’s collection and use of data belonging to children under 13 over several years.
But the case also placed wider scrutiny on the company’s approach to protecting young users from harmful content and experiences on its platforms.
Meta has spent years defending its child safety record, highlighting dozens of tools designed to protect children and teenagers on Instagram and Facebook.
The company has also faced criticism from parents and child safety advocates who argue that the sheer number of safety features can make it difficult for families to understand and manage them effectively.
The trial lasted only five days and ended before Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify.
However, evidence presented in court created further pressure on the company.
Former Instagram employee and whistleblower Arturo Bejar told the court that he had previously warned Meta executives about harmful experiences affecting children on the platform, but claimed that insufficient action was taken.
Another Meta executive said he could not remember writing in an internal presentation that the company sometimes opted to pay regulatory fines rather than make changes.
Internal documents also suggested that Meta knew safety tools requiring users to opt in often had low adoption rates, despite continuing to introduce some features without making them automatic.
The potential financial consequences of losing the case were enormous.
The maximum theoretical penalty was estimated at about $1.4tn, based on the number of children who could have been affected under the relevant calculations.
Although such a figure was considered highly unlikely, potential damages were still expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
Under the settlement, Meta will instead pay up to $18bn over 10 years and does not admit wrongdoing.
The agreement also requires the company to introduce new restrictions and safety measures for younger users on Instagram and Facebook.
Meta will introduce a default two-hour daily time limit across Instagram and Facebook for known teenage users.
However, direct messages will not count towards the two-hour limit.
The platforms will also mute notifications between midnight and 6am, as well as during school hours from 8am to 3pm on school days.
Likes on posts and other content will also be hidden for teenage users.
Most of the measures are expected to become default settings or options for teenagers within six months.
Meta will take up to a year to introduce additional measures aimed at improving its ability to identify children using its platforms.
The changes could eventually extend beyond the United States, particularly as governments and regulators around the world increase pressure on social media companies over child safety.
Meta has also acknowledged that the measures will have greater impact if competing platforms adopt similar protections.
That could put pressure on rivals such as TikTok and Snapchat to introduce comparable restrictions as scrutiny of social media’s impact on children intensifies.
The bigger question is whether stricter limits and reduced engagement features will make social media less attractive to young users.
If platforms become deliberately less addictive and less intrusive, some children may simply spend less time using them.
For Meta, however, the settlement does not change the importance of its social media platforms to its business.
Facebook and Instagram remain major sources of revenue, particularly through advertising powered by the vast user base and data generated across the company’s services.
While Meta increasingly presents artificial intelligence as the centre of its future strategy, its social platforms continue to provide the revenue that supports those ambitions.
For Bejar, the former Instagram engineer who became a whistleblower, the ultimate test will not be how many safety features Meta introduces but whether they actually protect children. “At the end of the day, Meta needs to be held accountable for results, not efforts,” he said.
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