The massive tech company Meta has agreed to pay nearly $18 billion to settle the sprawling lawsuits brought by 48 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories accusing the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to hook kids and profit off their attention.
The terms of the agreement will automatically apply to users under 18, and most of them are locked in for a decade. The new changes include:
- Daily time limits that teens can’t turn off. A cumulative two-hour daily time limit will be the default across Facebook and Instagram, including time spent scrolling. Teens can only turn off the limit with a parent’s permission.
- Default blocks from Meta apps at night. Between midnight and 6 a.m., teens will not be able to post or view their Feed, Stories, Explore, or Reels.
- Muted notifications during school hours. Notifications will be muted by default between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Teens will only receive push notifications for direct messages and alerts about their account security or safety.
- Screen time prompts. Teens will receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook or Instagram. They will also receive prompts when their total daily usage hits 60 minutes or 90 minutes.
- Algorithmic feed control. Teens can choose a non-algorithmic feed (one that isn’t “personalized” by Meta’s recommendation systems) as their default. Parents can adjust the default experience to require this setting.
- Autoplay control. Teens will be able to turn off autoplay so that content no longer plays automatically. Parents can adjust the default experience to require this setting.
- Hidden likes. The number of likes and reactions on teens’ posts — both their own and those from others — will be hidden by default.
- Filter blocks. In addition to the existing policy that blocks teens from using cosmetic surgery filters, teens will also be blocked from using extreme makeup filters.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the tech conglomerate said in a statement.
The fine print, though, reveals that Meta platforms’ direct messaging features are excluded from Night Mode, Time Limit, and School Mode restrictions.
As U.S. News & World Report’s Olivier Knox puts it: “So your child might not be able to fall down a rabbit hole of pirated ‘Game of Thrones’ clips while you sleep, but they could stay in constant contact with their social media buddies in the wee hours of the morning or during third-period math class.”
According to Meta, the above protections “will only be truly effective if we work with our peers — TikTok and YouTube — to put the same measures in place.”
And that’s a telling caveat, continues Knox.
Under the terms Meta disclosed, the money [from the settlement] will come in two tranches:
- States will get about $12.7 billion — 70% of the promised payout — over 10 years.
- The remaining 30%, roughly $5.3 billion, will only be disbursed after YouTube and TikTok implement a one-hour daily limit, “night mode” and other measures. And only after each of those companies pays out matching the 30% amount.
… Meta is initially committing to a two-hour daily limit but wants YouTube and TikTok to accept a one-hour daily limit.
Meta says it will also reduce its daily time limit to one hour per app and expand night mode to 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. if its rivals sign on.
The backlash against Big Tech isn’t happening only in the U.S. As I wrote here, UK recently joined a handful of countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Indonesia, that have put restrictions on social media use for children. France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand, and South Korea are looking into or developing similar measures.
Whether any of this changes how teens use these apps is an open question, especially given the direct messaging loopholes. Those gaps should remind us that parents still remain the first line of defense.