Meta has agreed to pay almost 17 billion dollars to settle the lawsuit for damages to minors over the design of its social networks, the largest legal process in its history in which it faced accusations from 29 US state governments.
The tech company has also committed to establishing stricter usage limits for minors that cannot be turned off on its social networks, night-time blocks, or notifications deactivated during school hours. The agreement to establish these measures has been made with all US attorneys general and aims to strengthen the company’s so-called teen accounts.
The agreement means a quick resolution to a conflict where the states’ starting point was to demand 1.3 trillion dollars in compensation from Meta, and which had once again put the company’s policies and the absence of controls or willingness to solve these types of problems in the public eye, shortly after it had lost a similar trial in New Mexico, where it was ordered to pay 567 million dollars and it was established that Meta’s networks caused addiction, a bad precedent for expecting a favorable court ruling.
The agreed sanction means Meta will pay less than a third of its annual profit, and it will also be paid deferred over the next ten years. This will be used to finance initiatives for online safety for minors. However, the collection of this amount for the States is only guaranteed at 70%. Meta will only pay the other 30% if TikTok and YouTube commit to taking a series of measures to better control their teenagers’ use of their platforms.
The proposals that Meta will adopt and aims to extend to its rivals range from a one-hour daily usage limit, night mode, and age verification measures. In addition, these two companies must commit to financing online initiatives for minors for 5.3 billion dollars, the same amount that Meta puts on the table linked to the actions of its rivals.
Meta’s commitments in the United States go beyond those it already has in Europe and, for example, it will end notifications between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM, the average school hours for minors in the United States. It will also hide the number of likes, allow recommendation algorithms to be deactivated and convert the feed into one that only shows followers’ posts, as well as disable the infinite video carousel.
All these measures are designed to discourage abusive use in a context where the company faces increasing pressure from governments worldwide to curb minors’ exposure to social networks, which they accuse of damaging the mental health of this group and generating a mobile addiction that penalizes their cognitive development. This has led countries like Australia to already ban social media for under-16s, and other countries like Spain and France are considering it.
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In addition to these limitations, both Instagram and Facebook will display notifications when 15 and 30 minutes of continuous use are exceeded, as well as when an hour of use has been exceeded during the day. Filters with extreme makeup will also not be shown to this group, and age-tagging systems for content and age verification will be improved.
The agreement will be audited by independent figures, and an organization will also be created to study the impact of these measures using data provided by Meta.
Call to Rivals
Meta has committed to fulfilling these commitments for 10 years, but some of these measures are linked to being part of an “industry-level” agreement that primarily affects YouTube and TikTok.
In fact, the social network is willing to go further in some commitments and extend them over time, provided they are also supported by rivals.
“We want to ensure that minors benefit from new industry standards, and we cannot do it alone. These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers (TikTok and YouTube) to put the same measures in place,” the social network states in a press release.
