Maine to get $56M from Meta settlement over teen social media addiction
Meta agreed Wednesday to pay $17 billion in damages and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms in a landmark legal settlement that ended a federal court battle over teen social media addiction and resolved claims filed by 47 states, including Maine.
Under the agreement, Maine will receive no less than $56 million, said state Attorney General Aaron Frey. The settlement is subject to court approval in the Northern District of California.
“This hard-fought settlement provides important protections for children on Meta’s platforms, Instagram and Facebook, and empowers parents with tools to help address the negative impacts of social media use on children,” Frey said via email.
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Meta has agreed to measures designed to ensure that children age 12 and under cannot access its platforms and children ages 13-17 have limited access, Frey said.
The agreement — one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history, after the $206 billion Big Tobacco settlement in 1998 — resolves a yearslong case aimed at holding the tech giant accountable for its role in grabbing children’s attention and harming their mental health.
“While this settlement is an important step, the need to make social media safer for children must extend to the entire industry,” Frey said. “We will continue to work with our multistate partners to push for comprehensive changes that prioritize the safety and welfare of children over profit.”
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Gov. Janet Mills said the settlement will bring meaningful new protections, including bans on content that stokes mental health issues.
“For too long, social media has gone unregulated, harming the mental health of vulnerable children,” Mills said via email. “While there’s still much more to do to protect our kids online, I’m glad major corporations like Meta are finally being forced to make online spaces safer for our kids.”
Mills has long advocated for stronger online protections for Maine children. This year, she proposed and signed into law a statewide bell-to-bell cellphone ban in schools to end doomscrolling in classrooms, help students let go of addictive phones, and refocus school on education and community.
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The states charged that Meta designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things.
“This settlement is a victory for the protection of America’s children and an important first step to transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens,” Frey said.
Under the agreement, Meta must add daily time limits and “productive pauses” on most content to prevent teens from endless scrolling. Instagram and Facebook would have a combined two-hour daily time limit, with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes.
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These limits are to remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
Other safety features Meta must implement include nighttime blocks restricting teens access from midnight to 6 a.m.; push notification bans on school days from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.; more effective age verification measures; and stronger safeguards against bullying.
Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states, Frey said.
According to the settlement, which will be paid out over 10 years, the money can be used for a variety of purposes as deemed appropriate by each state’s attorney general, such as youth crisis intervention services, after-school or summer youth programs, public health advertising and youth mental health programs.
The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming joined the settlement.
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Tagged: Facebook, instagram, Maine attorney general, social media, technology
Kelley writes about Maine businesses large and small, focusing on economic development, workforce initiatives and the state’s leading business organizations. Her wider experience includes municipal and. More by Kelley Bouchard
