NEW YORK, USA, 1. MARCH 2022: Meta or Metaverse logo on big screen, Facebook company, Meta Platforms. business and employment-oriented online service Group of business people chat on phone and laptop
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Meta will hold back about $5.3bn of its teen safety settlement. The money moves only if TikTok and YouTube adopt the same rules and pay matching sums.
The company set out the structure in a newsroom post on Wednesday, hours after agreeing to settle the states’ case.
Meta puts the full payment at approximately $18bn, paid in annual instalments over ten years. Court papers reported earlier put the maximum at $16.68bn.
The company frames the whole agreement as a new industry standard, and says it cannot deliver one on its own.
How the money divides
Participating states take roughly 70% of it, about $12.7bn, across the decade. Meta says that money can fund youth online safety initiatives and other state priorities.
The other 30%, about $5.3bn, depends on two things happening. Meta lists both.
The first is that YouTube and TikTok implement a one-hour daily limit, night mode and age assurance measures.
The second is that each of them pays an amount matching the 30% figure. Half of the held-back money tracks YouTube’s payment and half tracks TikTok’s.
Meta expects to accrue a legal expense of approximately $10bn in the third quarter. That charge sat outside the expense range it gave on its second-quarter earnings call, the company says. Its other July guidance stands.
The terms tighten if the others sign
Most of the agreement runs for ten years. The daily time limit and night mode start on a five-year commitment.
Meta says both extend to ten years if industry peers sign on. The defaults also harden.
The daily limit would drop from two hours to one hour per app. Night mode would widen from midnight to 6am, out to 10pm until 7am.
What Meta has agreed to now
Pending judicial approval, the protections apply automatically to under-18s on Instagram and Facebook in participating states and territories.
The time limit is two hours a day by default. It runs cumulatively across Facebook and Instagram, and covers multiple accounts where Meta detects them. Teens can only switch it off with a parent’s permission.
Night mode blocks the apps between midnight and 6am. Teens cannot post or view Feed, Stories, Explore or Reels in those hours.
School mode mutes notifications between 8am and 3pm, apart from direct messages and alerts about account security or safety. Direct messaging sits outside all three restrictions.
Prompts arrive after every 15 minutes of continuous use, and again at 60 and 90 minutes of daily use. Meta says they encourage intentional use.
The feed and filter changes
Teens will be able to choose a non-algorithmic feed as their default, one that Meta’s recommendation systems do not personalise. Parents can require that setting.
Teens can also switch autoplay off, and parents can require that too. Likes and reactions hide by default, on a teen’s own posts and on other people’s.
Meta will block teens from extreme makeup filters. It already blocks cosmetic surgery filters. We covered the 13-plus content settings when Meta took them global in June.
The open letter
Meta published a letter to TikTok and YouTube alongside the announcement, urging both to adopt the framework.
C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said the framework sets the right path for the industry but depends on peers joining. “Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution,” he said.
Meta argues the point directly in the post. When teens face restrictions on one app, it says, they move to another.
Neither TikTok nor YouTube has responded publicly. Meta’s post carries a forward-looking statements disclaimer.
Who signed
Meta describes the agreement as covering a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general, across US states, territories and the District of Columbia. Its post lists all of them, from Alabama to Wyoming, and includes Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The federal trial in Oakland that prompted the settlement involved claims from 29 states. We reported that settlement earlier on Wednesday, when court papers put the maximum at $16.68bn.
Meta also says it will keep pressing for legislation that requires app stores to verify age and get parental approval before a teen downloads an app.
Oversight
An independent auditor will test Meta’s compliance with the agreement and report to the states once a year for five years.
The agreement also establishes an independent social media research foundation. Meta says it will share consented user data with it, to support research into teen wellbeing.
Meta launched Teen Accounts in 2024, and points to that work in the post as the foundation for these terms.
Where Europe stands
None of this reaches European users. The settings apply in participating US states and territories.
The European Commission escalated its own investigation into Meta over addictive design aimed at children in July. Australia and the United Kingdom have both moved on under-16 access, and New Zealand said this week it will introduce a bill for a ban.
Meta said this month it had removed 756,000 Australian teen accounts, though most under-16s remained online. A watchdog reported this month that Meta pays influencers to oppose teen bans worldwide.
What to watch
A judge has to approve the agreement before any of it takes effect. Meta says the majority of the terms then hold for ten years.
TikTok and YouTube have not said whether they will adopt the framework or pay. Until they do, $5.3bn stays with Meta and the tighter defaults do not apply.
Meta faces a separate state trial in Nashville, which continues, and the 2,400 lawsuits the Ninth Circuit let proceed this month.
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