Meta's $17 billion settlement mandates new safeguards for kids—many are promising, says safety expert — CNBC

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Meta's $17 billion settlement mandates new safeguards for kids—many are promising, says safety expert — CNBC | AIPROPX

In a major case between Meta and 52 attorneys general across the U.S. alleging the social media giant knowingly designed products that were harmful and addictive to kids, the two sides settled on Wednesday, with the Facebook and Instagram parent company agreeing to pay about $17 billion. It's one of multiple trials related to alleged harms to young users that Meta has faced this year alone.

The settlement's sum "can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities," according to a statement by the company on Wednesday. "It's the highest amount of money ever paid in a case like this," California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who co-led the effort, told CNBC's David Faber on "Squawk on the Street" on Thursday. Still, "the core of this case is not the financial penalties that Meta is paying," Bonta said. "It is the business practices that they will change that will help protect the mental health of our kids."

The settlement requires Meta to enforce a series of safeguards and parental control features for under 18-year-old users of Facebook and Instagram. Most of the terms are required to remain in place for 10 years, and Meta's payments will be distributed annually over that decade, according to the company's statement. The company has a $1.47 trillion market capitalization, as of Friday afternoon, slightly up from its $1.45 trillion at Tuesday's market close.

When it comes to a safer online experience for young users, many of the settlement's mandated features are promising, says Laura Edelson , an assistant professor of computer sciences at Northeastern University whose research has focused on social media safety.

In June 2026, Edelson co-authored a research report which found that nearly 60% of social media safety features across the industry failed to effectively protect young users. Studies have found associations between higher screen time use and poor mental and physical health among teens, and about half of U.S. teenagers report spending at least four hours per day using social media, according to Gallup .

Meta is far from the only social media company to draw attention for its approach to child safety. TikTok, for example, agreed to a $400 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on Aug. 21 to resolve allegations of children's online privacy law violations. YouTube, which has faced similar litigation in years past , released new teen-focused protections in January, including the ability for parents to set time limits on YouTube Shorts for their kids.

The Meta settlement also mandates daily time limits for kids across both Facebook and Instagram, part of a package of features that "research has been pointing to as to what would be helpful," Edelson says. Still, the mandates aren't necessarily perfect, she adds.

Here are some of the new elements of the two Meta-owned platforms, and how Edelson thinks they could affect teens' online experience.

Instagram and Facebook's new features for minors include the following, according to the statement released by Meta:

Most of the safeguards will roll out within six months, a Meta spokesperson tells CNBC Make It. Features like age assurance may take as long as a year. A majority of the new features will be implemented in teen accounts automatically, the spokesperson says, though parents and teens will have to disable autoplay and the algorithmic feed manually in their settings.

Edelson highlights the ability to disable autoplay as particularly promising. Autoplay features on social media increase "usage duration," so disabling them could be beneficial for encouraging teens to spend less time on those platforms, she says.

However, the fact that parents or teens need to do so themselves to gain benefits creates an added layer of work. Creating a scenario where kids have to go through multiple steps to disable a feature is unrealistic, because many simply won't go through the trouble, she adds. The apps will periodically remind teens of the option to turn off autoplay if they haven't done so, the Meta spokesperson says.

The upcoming features may include the ability to halt autoplay, but they don't include the ability to disable infinite scroll, Edelson notes. Infinite scroll causes new content to automatically load when the user reaches the bottom of a page, encouraging continued engagement with the platform's feed. It's "the thing that I see as really missing here," she says. However, infinite scroll becomes obsolete with a two-hour time limit meant to stop teens from scrolling for too long, says the Meta spokesperson.

Another noteworthy part of the settlement, according to Meta's statement: establishing both an independent social media research foundation to advance research on teen well-being and an independent auditor that "will test and report to the states on Meta's compliance with the agreement."

Meta is still working through the details of these elements, the spokesperson says. Such a foundation could help teens develop healthier relationships with social media if it involves "some kind of independent way to verify what platforms are doing, and whether they're actually following through on these commitments," says Edelson.

In the meantime, for parents, there's no one-size-fits-all piece of advice for how to help your kids approach social media in a healthy, safe way , she says.

"The right approach to social media is different for every kid, and will change over time as kids go through developmental stages and social environments," says Edelson. "Parents should talk to their kids regularly about their social media usage and help their kids understand what they are getting out of social media and how it makes them feel."

CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.

Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It