Meta has agreed to settle a high-profile case over children's privacy and social media addiction. The company will pay up to $18 billion and make changes to its platforms to resolve claims from dozens of states that it designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users and collected children's personal data. A court still needs to sign off on the proposed settlement, in which Meta denied wrongdoing.

Among other things, Meta agreed to set a default two-hour daily time limit for users aged under 18, with only a parent able to increase those limits. It will block apps for young users between midnight and 6AM by default, and provide clear prompts and notifications to teens every 15 minutes of continuous screen time. Notably, the company said it will reduce the daily time limit to one hour and expand the nighttime blackout if its rivals agree to do the same.

Meta will pay 70 percent of the settlement over 10 years, with the remaining 30 percent conditional on You Tube and Tik Tok matching that amount and agreeing to similar measures. Meta will also block notifications for under 18s overnight and during school hours, ban extreme makeup filters, and let parents enable a non-algorithmic feed by default. The company pledged to respond to 90 percent of teen reports of harmful content within six hours.

Following a two-year investigation, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and dozens of other attorneys general sued Meta in 2023. The case went to trial this month, and the two sides reached a settlement before Instagram chief Adam Mosseri returned to the stand.