—
Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add stronger child-safety measures as part of a landmark legal settlement that ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by 47 states, including Michigan.
The settlement resolved claims by 47 states and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that Meta designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed children to mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms.
The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: 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 will 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.
Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
Robust 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.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said the state will receive at least $171 million under the agreement.
“For too many years, social media platforms have traded our children’s mental health for engagement on their apps,” Nessel said in a statement on Wednesday morning. “This historic settlement holds Meta accountable and puts critical, first-of-its-kind safeguards in place to protect Michigan kids, including daily screen breaks, nighttime access blocks, and the removal of harmful features like public counts.
“Now, the responsibility to protect our youth cannot end here,” she added. “It is my hope that this is a turning point for the entire social media industry to prioritize the safety and well-being of children over their bottom line.”
“Our kids deserve so much better…”
Jennifer Buta still thinks about her son, Jordan DeMay, every day.
Jordan was a 17-year-old senior and multi-sport star at Marquette High School when he was targeted in a sextortion scam in the early morning hours of March 25, 2022.
It started with a direct message on Instagram.
“I think that the settlement today is very significant and not necessarily in the price tag on it,” Buta said from her home in Marquette on Wednesday.
It’s the fact that Meta is taking responsibility for the safety of their platforms and saying that they will do things to change this.”
Jordan was having what he thought was a conversation with a young woman when he was tricked into sending an inappropriate photo and was quickly ambushed by Nigerian scammers who demanded $1,000. In a panic, Jordan took his own life.
“Losing Jordan is the hardest thing I will probably ever go through in my life, and it never leaves me from day to day that he isn’t here,” Buta said. “Other parents have lost their children to harms that came from social media, so to have an outcome like today, it feels like a big win.”
She likes that the company is planning to finally put in concrete safeguards, but she says that parents still need to stay vigilant when their kids are online.
“Talk to your children if something doesn’t feel right in something that you’re doing online or seeing,” she said. “Make sure you come forward and seek help if you find yourself in a situation where you’re feeling that there isn’t a way out.
“Even though the harm that has happened to my family and other families cannot be undone, it does provide future protections for other kids and families,” she added. “Our kids deserve so much better.”
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
