Meta agrees to pay $17 billion to settle US states' lawsuits over child harms on Facebook, Instagram

Meta has agreed to pay about $17 billion to settle lawsuits brought by 47 U.S. states that accused Facebook and Instagram of causing mental harm to children and teenagers. As part of the settlement, the company will introduce new safeguards for minor users, including limits on usage time, stronger age-verification systems and the disabling of notifications during school hours. Meta will also tighten moderation of content linked to cyberbullying, self-harm and eating disorders, and expand parental supervision tools. The company said it will restrict certain social-comparison features, such as visible like counts. The states had accused Meta of designing addictive features aimed at children, concealing the risks of its platforms and collecting data from users under 13 without parental consent. The potential damages Meta faced in the cases had reached as high as $1.4 trillion. No further details on the timeline for implementing the new measures were immediately available.