FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Danna Hayes, Danna.hayes@maine.gov
Attorney General Aaron M. Frey Announces Largest Big Tech Settlement in History
Meta to Pay Up to $17 Billion and Implement Sweeping Child-Safety Reforms on Instagram and Facebook
AUGUSTA – Today, Attorney General Aaron M. Frey announced a landmark $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc.— the largest state consumer protection settlement in history outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. The settlement is subject to court approval. In addition to the payment, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. The agreement resolves claims by 47 States and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that the company 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. Under the settlement, Maine will receive no less than $56 million.
“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,” said Attorney General Frey. “Notably, Meta is agreeing to measures designed to ensure that children under 13 are not on its platforms. While this settlement is an important step, the need to make social media safer for children must extend to the entire industry. We will continue to work with our multistate partners to push for comprehensive changes that prioritize the safety and welfare of children over profit.”
The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
- Daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children for most content: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits 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.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
- Eliminating push notifications during school hours (weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.).
- Age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
These are critical changes to Instagram and Facebook and more comprehensive than previously ordered by any court.
Beginning in 2021, nearly every attorney general in the country cooperated to investigate the social media industry for designing and promoting platforms to children and teens despite known harms. After a bipartisan, nationwide investigation found that Meta designed Instagram’s features to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, attorneys general across the country sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit. This settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. The settlement also resolves the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.
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.