What Meta’s $17B social media addiction settlement means for California teens

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Meta’s landmark settlement agreement with California and 46 other states could bring significant changes to how young people interact with its social platforms and help fund more mental health support for California students. 

The tech giant and a coalition of 47 states and the District of Columbia announced an agreement on Wednesday to end a trial in Oakland over allegations that Meta deliberately designed Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children. The states also accused Meta of misleading the public about teen users’ safety and exposing them to mental health harms. 

After years of litigation and thousands of lawsuits brought by states, school districts and individuals, the settlement is unprecedented in that it forces Meta to redesign parts of its social media platforms Instagram and Facebook for teen users.

“This is a significant victory for families across the country, for parents, for children, for those who are suffering in silence and those who are suffering in public,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta during a news conference on Wednesday. “We have secured the changes we were after.”

Meta will pay up to a total of $17.1 billion, of which California will receive roughly $1.5 billion, to states annually over the next 10 years, Bonta said. The company has also agreed to redesign certain design features, such as introducing daily use limits, reduced push notifications and offering nonpersonalized feeds to users under 18. 

C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, wrote in a statement that Meta wants to ensure “teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms,” and the company “partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.” 

The settlement follows a series of legal defeats for Meta. A New Mexico judge ordered the company to pay $942 million in penalties and impose a 90-hour monthly use limit for minors. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for $6 million in damages for an “addictive” design that contributed to a 20-year-old plaintiff’s declining mental health. 

Targeting features that ‘keep them endlessly scrolling’

Bonta said Meta has agreed to set a default daily time limit of two hours for users under age 18, block access between midnight and 6 a.m. and suppress push notifications during the school day. The company will also remove displaying “likes” or reactions to posts, ban cosmetic procedure filters and provide young users with the option for a nonpersonalized feed that does not use algorithmic targeting “to keep them endlessly scrolling,” Bonta said.

Vihaan Bhardwaj, a San Diego high school senior and K-12 co-chief of policy at the GenerationUp youth advocacy group, said the design changes could “make a lasting impact on the next generation of online young people,” though he is concerned other features may keep kids hooked.

“There’s always ways to make it addictive, even if you’re removing some addictive elements,” Vihaan said. “I still think that the pressure needs to continue, because this shouldn’t be a way for them to ease out of [it].”

Meta and other social media companies are still facing more than 1,000 lawsuits from school districts, including Los Angeles Unified School District, which allege that teen social media addiction has increased costs to provide students school-based mental health services. A Kentucky school district recently settled a case with Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google for $27 million.

Nick Melvoin, an LAUSD board member, said Meta’s settlement with states helps set an “evidentiary record” for the district’s pending case against social media companies. 

“You have the implicit admission of addiction through changes to the platform, [which is] more significant to me than just the financial remuneration,” Melvoin said.

Melvoin called on states and Meta to enforce the terms of the agreement so that students do not find workarounds for restricted features. Bonta said the attorney general’s office will hold the company in contempt of court if it fails to implement the redesigned features. 

“We need to keep them honest through the continued pressure of litigation and legislation, and also parent advocacy, to let them know that it’s getting increasingly more expensive for them to continue these practices,” Melvoin said. 

Spotlight on algorithmic feeds

Vihaan, who made his first Instagram account at age 12, said the app’s algorithm fed him “fearmongering” content about his acne. He said nonpersonalized feed will have a big impact on teens’ mental health, and his own. He urged Meta to make it the default option for teens.

He said a teenager’s compulsive urge to open social media can often be triggered by an “insecurity that’s been activated” by the platform itself. 

“It’s like quicksand that you keep falling into,” he added.

Instagram originally had a reverse-chronological feed before switching to the ubiquitous algorithmic feed in 2016. The redesigned feed enabled the platform to more closely track behavioral data, and also helped accelerate Meta’s ad revenue by 57% in the same year. 

To help enforce restricted features for users under 18, Meta also agreed to incorporate stronger age-verification measures. The company will report to an independent auditor and regularly communicate with the attorney general’s office to maintain oversight, Bonta said. 

Privacy experts have cautioned against stronger age verification, such as collecting facial images or government IDs, that could be vulnerable to data breaches or misuse. Kate Ruane, director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement that the settlement poses potential risks to privacy and free expression online, as it “will subject all users to invasive age assurance.”

California to receive about $1.5 billion

Bonta said California will receive between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion. He said the state Legislature and governor will decide how to allocate the settlement funds, which are earmarked for initiatives to prevent mental health harms to young Californians related to social media use.

About one-third of the settlement will also only be paid if YouTube and TikTok also adopt similar protections for users under 18. The settlement is pending a judge’s approval. 

“This framework will only work if all our peers join us,” Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney said. “Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industrywide solution.”

Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, said the state’s payout should go toward strengthening mental health support in schools. 

“Schools are where students spend the majority of their waking hours, and that’s where people who specialize in children and youth [mental health] are available for help,” Whitson said. “It has to start with having strong student support services in schools,” especially given California’s ongoing shortage of school mental health counselors, she added. 

Melvoin said LAUSD will likely seek funding for more mental health support from the settlement. But, the payout is not significant enough to sustain increased mental health services in schools, he added. 

State leaders should invest the payout into “third spaces,” where young people can both facilitate in-person connection off of social media and more “organically work on our well-being” outside a counselor’s office, Vihaan said. 

If given more resources from the settlement, school counselors could help facilitate some of those student-led spaces on campus, Whitson said.  

“You’re so overwhelmed with these crises in children’s lives that you don’t get to what [Vihaan] is talking about,” Whitson said, “which is building space for kids to be able to have community with each other.”

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