Meta’s mega-deal could change the game for social media

Meta's multibillion-dollar court settlements with U.S. states Wednesday set the stage for groundbreaking changes to protections for children across social media — a realm where Congress has tried and failed to regulate.

The total dollar amount — $18 billion, including $17 billion from a sprawling case based in California, plus a separate agreement with Texas — would make it one of the largest consumer protection settlements in U.S. history.

But its real power would come from the age limits and other safety guardrails that Meta would impose on its Instagram and Facebook platforms, terms that could someday extend to companies such as Google, TikTok and Snap.

Indeed, Meta immediately issued a public plea for TikTok and Google-owned YouTube to "join us and state attorneys general in adopting this new standard, to ensure teens use social media in a healthy and responsible way." Meta is launching a campaign to "shame" other companies into signing on to the provisions, according to a person with knowledge of the plan who was granted anonymity to disclose private conversations.

Any resulting agreements could force substantial changes to platforms most Americans access daily — after years in which the online giants have mainly had to worry about regulations from California and Europe.

"We didn't get everything we wanted, but we got a whole lot out of this. Congress really hasn't been able to act," Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told POLITICO in an interview. "This is, I think, the next-best thing that we can do to protect our kids."

Meta is similarly touting the settlement as precedent-setting. Its legal chief, C.J. Mahoney, said Wednesday it charts "the right path forward for our whole industry" — but that its success "depends on all other social media platforms" following suit.

"We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away," Mahoney added.

YouTube and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. Snap, which is mentioned in the settlement terms, also did not respond.

But some people in the tech industry "are completely rolling their eyes" at the deal, a person at another company told POLITICO, adding that Meta is agreeing to terms that would harm other online firms.

"Fundamentally, this just feels like a PR stunt," said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about reaction within the industry. "They're describing this as an agreement. It's not an agreement if they have a gun to your head. They want to bring everyone down because they're fundamentally unable to defend their practices."

'It's a shame that we had to be in this position'

Meta has repeatedly faced criticism from members of both parties in Congress over allegations that its platforms knowingly harm children, including by fostering anxiety, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts. Those accusations led to a dramatic moment during a January 2024 hearing where CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood and apologized to parents in the audience.

But lawmakers have repeatedly failed to enact comprehensive federal kids safety legislation, and prospects for Congress to enact such a law this year appear dodgy because of sharp divides between the House and Senate.

"It's a shame that we had to be in this position," said Julie Scelfo, founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, a kids' online safety nonprofit. "It's really incumbent on lawmakers to not make any more excuses."

The push for legislation must continue, said House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who helped craft the kids' safety package that his chamber passed in June.

"Today's settlement makes clear the gravity of the dangers facing our children and underscores the need for comprehensive legislation to protect them from online harms," Guthrie said. "Without further legislation, the threats facing our kids will continue."

The settlement came midway through a civil trial focused on claims by California and more than two dozen other states that Meta has intentionally hooked kids on its platforms while misleading users about their potential harms. The deal extends to at least 47 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed to a parallel settlement worth more than $1 billion with the company Wednesday. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez negotiated his state's own remedies with Meta in a separate case earlier this year.

In the largest settlement with 47 states, Meta agreed to pay $17 billion over the next decade and implement a host of restrictions for young users — including concealing the number of "likes" on posts, prohibiting "beauty filter" features and providing options to deactivate the allegedly addictive recommendation algorithms that drive engagement. The deal also requires the company to implement improved age verification, impose time limits for teen users and undergo five years of independent auditing.

California-based U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the agreement Wednesday afternoon.

At least one state rejected the deal: Florida, where Attorney General James Uthmeier dismissed the concessions as "peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta's profit-driven addictive features have inflicted on our children." Meta's net worth is nearly $1.5 trillion, and the company reported more than $200 billion in revenue last year.

But the design terms won cautious approval from Frances Haugen, a Meta whistleblower whose disclosures helped spark the current wave of litigation.

"One of the advantages of the settlement is it establishes a new default for at least the … bare minimum (no more notifications late at night)," she said in a message to POLITICO. "My hope is that by the time these protections expire, it will make it easier for Congress to pass a law at least to maintain that floor."

Matthew Lawrence, a professor at Emory University School of Law and expert on the regulation of addiction, said the agreement appears fairly "thorough" in terms of what an independent safety regulator might consider.

"It's been looking like we would move toward some kind of industry self-regulating standard setting" that comes via litigation, "and this is a big step toward that," Lawrence said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the agreement as a "major breakthrough" and "a watershed moment," adding that the other social media company defendants should follow suit.

"Again, we're happy to talk in the boardroom to get to those results, or we can see folks in the courtroom as well," Bonta said.

Enforcing age limits

One of the deal's far-reaching results could be creating a de-facto age assurance standard for social media platforms, a notion that has proven divisive in Congress and brought objections from privacy advocates.

Age assurance requirements for protecting children online are popular, polls have found. But proposed methods of proving online users' ages, such as requiring adults to scan their faces or drivers' licenses, are not.

A proposed bill called the SCREEN Act — which would require age verification for accessing pornography online — was the only bill that failed to advance this month when the Senate Commerce Committee marked up a package of kids' online safety bill.

Meta's settlement helps circumvent many of the political fights around age verification while pressuring the rest of the tech industry to adhere to voluntary standards, said Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association.

"I wouldn't be surprised if politicians welcomed this excuse not to legislate," he said.

The proposal's safeguards are similar to those put forward by advocates and lawmakers in the pending House and Senate versions of the Kids Online Safety Act.

While the lawsuit has taken years to reach this point, advocates say the apolitical nature of the court process often leads to quicker results than waiting for lawmakers to act. "We can't ignore the role that Big Tech's millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions have played in stalling progress on federal legislation like KOSA," Mothers Against Media Addiction's Scelfo said.

"If Congress had passed KOSA years ago, safety-by-design protections would already be law, and states wouldn't need litigation to mandate design changes one company at a time," said Mick Tobin, co-founder and advocacy director of the Young People's Alliance.

Amping the pressure on Washington

The terms of the agreement will be in force for only 10 years and, for now, would apply solely to Meta. The settlement also does not establish a legal mandate known as duty of care — requiring platforms to curb reasonably foreseeable harm to minors — which online safety groups have been pushing to include in legislation.

Haley Hinkle, policy counsel for child tech safety group Fairplay, said Congress still needs to establish a "future-proof standard," though she sees the fact that Meta accepted this settlement as a promising sign for legislative efforts.

"Meta agreeing to these design changes means that they're admitting these types of protections are fully lawful, and can be required of them via a legal system," she told POLITICO. "We are certainly noting that as we continue to push for legislation."

Lawmakers are also using momentum from the settlement to argue that Capitol Hill still has a role to play when it comes to protecting kids online.

"This settlement once again demands that Congress pass the Kids Online Safety Act into law before the end of the year," Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the bill's two lead Senate sponsors, said in a statement.

Eliza Gkritsi and Mizy Clifton contributed to this report.