What’s changing on Instagram, Facebook for teens after Meta’s $17B settlement?

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17 billion over 10 years to settle claims brought by the 29 US states against the tech giant in a landmark youth safety trial.

As a result of a recently announced settlement on Wednesday, the federal trial that was ongoing in California now ended. At the heart of this lawsuit lies the concerns of a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general that Meta is responsible for developing addictive features of Facebook and Instagram, keeping the teens glued to the screens and damaging their well-being.

The company was also accused of collecting the data of children aged 13-17 illegally and without parental consent, thereby jeopardising their privacy. However, Meta always denied these accusations.

Despite demanding financial compensation, the US states also demanded to bring some fundamental changes to Social media platforms including Instagram and Facebook.

The proposed changes for teens

The core of the agreement is design changes like ending infinite scroll and autoplay. If approved by the court, teens under 18 using Instagram and Facebook in participating states will receive:

• Two-hour daily limit by default. Total cumulative screen across both apps will be capped at 2-hours per day with time tracked across multiple accounts if detected.
• The changes include overnight lockout, generally blocking access from midnight to 6am.
• School-hour restrictions during 8am to 3pm include the reduced notifications and functionality except direct messaging and safety notices,
• Teens will receive break prompts after 15 minutes of continuous scrolling as well as milestone alerts at 60-90 minutes.
• The changes include the option of a non-algorithmic and non-personalized feed, allowing teens switching away from algorithmic recommendations.
• Autoplay can be disabled and like or reaction counts remain hidden by default to avoid social comparison.
• Cosmetic surgery and extreme beauty filters will be blocked on minor accounts.
• To strengthen age verification systems, Meta will deploy AI-driven age estimation tools to spot underage users.

What happens next

The true impact depends on whether new default settings actually restrict usage and are difficult to circumvent across various accounts and devices.

Speaking about technical hurdles, enforcing strict age control is notoriously difficult in technology.

Teens may simply migrate to unprotected platforms or shift into direct messages, which are exempt from the agreement.

Competitors' dynamics are also at play. For instance, a significant portion of the settlement is released if YouTube and TikTok also adopt comparable teen protections and matching payments.

Global impact

South Korea’s media regulator said that the proposed changes meant to protect the young users from addictive social media should be applied to all globally instead of just in specific markets.