Following a landmark agreement in the United States on Wednesday, social media giant Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to US states. This historic settlement, pending court approval, obliges the company to make Instagram and Facebook safer for children.

Scientific research – including a landmark report by an expert panel commissioned by the European Commission – shows that excessive social media use damages early childhood brain development and fuels mental health crises among young people. Meta emphasises that the settlement is not proof of harmful health effects caused by its platforms.

However, the unprecedented sum is likely to increase global pressure on platform operators to take action. The company said it had agreed to distribute the payments in annual instalments over a 10-year period to fund youth online safety initiatives across the participating states.

Meta limits social media access for youth

The agreement stipulates that Meta must limit daily usage time to two hours, disable extreme beauty filters, pause nighttime notifications and hide ‘like’ counts on posts by teenagers.

In addition, the company will implement an age verification system under which no more than 3% of 13- to 15-year-olds and 10% cent of older teenagers may be incorrectly classified as adults.

“The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms,” said CJ Mahoney, chief legal officer at Meta in a statement on Wednesday.

To prevent an exodus of young users, Meta is urging its competitors, YouTube and TikTok, to adopt these standards.

Doubts about effectiveness of settlement

However, experts question whether the agreed time limits will effectively curb deep-rooted addiction risks. Parents can easily disable these daily usage caps, and the overnight notification pause does not cover direct messaging.

Biometric facial scans for age verification remain controversial because processing sensitive video data violates data protection principles. Furthermore, teenagers easily bypass basic digital blocks using virtual private networks (VPNs), while privacy-friendly age verification methods remain unavailable on a large scale.

A signal to regulators worldwide

Nevertheless, the US settlement establishes a benchmark for youth social media bans passed in Australia and proposed in New Zealand.

The European Commission plans to introduce a draft regulation this autumn to enforce a harmonised European age limit and strict safety-by-design standards. This proposed framework aims to end the current patchwork of legislation across Europe, as national restrictions often clash with the strict rules of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

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