AG Labrador Delivers Largest Big Tech Settlement in History for Child Protection Against Facebook, Instagram

BOISE, ID - Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced today a staggering $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. This is one of the largest state consumer protection settlements on record outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. 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 intentionally addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and purposefully misled the public about the safety of its platforms. The settlement was reached mid-trial which began on August 18^th in federal court and was expected to last several weeks. Under the settlement allocation, Idaho will receive a minimum of $89.2 million and a maximum of $127.7 million.

"Protecting children in Idaho is one of the most critical responsibilities of my office," stated Attorney General Labrador. "Intentionally engineering any product to addict children is unconscionable. Meta's design was a cynical attempt to create a lifetime user, regardless of the psychological damage and harm our children were exposed to. When this trial began, I said we would hold Meta accountable and today I've kept that promise."

Beginning in 2021, attorneys general across 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, 55 attorneys general sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit.

In addition to the payment, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children 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 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.

● Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.

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, Maine, 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.

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