RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Fortune — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 2 sources
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, whose office won the first jury verdict against Meta over child safety anywhere in the country, told Fortune the settlement Meta struck this week with 51 other attorneys general doesn’t go as far as what his state already secured on its own.
“We had hoped a nationwide settlement might echo the full strength of the protections New Mexico secured in court—including a direct ban on romantic and sexualized AI chatbot interactions with minors and stronger safeguards against adults targeting kids in private messages,” Torrez told Fortune . “But this settlement still represents real progress and adds momentum to finish the job of protecting kids online.”
It’s a notable crack in what has otherwise been a unified front. Torrez is uniquely positioned to make the comparison, since New Mexico is the one place where a court, rather than a settlement, has already decided what Meta owes children.
Torrez’s office won a jury verdict against Meta in March , when a Santa Fe jury found the company liable for 75,000 violations of the state’s consumer protection law and ordered it to pay $375 million in civil penalties. A judge added another $567 million in August after ruling that Meta had created a “public nuisance” similar to air pollution, bringing New Mexico’s own tally against the company to roughly $942 million—before the state, weeks later, joined the very settlement Torrez now says falls short of what he’d already won.
He still called this week’s deal historic. “New Mexico was the first state to take Meta to trial over the harm its platforms cause children, and we’re encouraged to see that fight now translate into a nationwide settlement,” Torrez said. “This is a testament to the attorneys general across the country, from both parties, who came together and refused to let this company off the hook.”
Child online safety experts agree
Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion over the next decade and overhaul how Facebook and Instagram work for anyone under 18, settling the lawsuit brought by the 51-state coalition that accused the company of designing its platforms to be addictive to children. The deal, still subject to court approval, requires a default two-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block between midnight and 6 a.m., muted notifications during the school day, hidden like counts, a ban on cosmetic-surgery and extreme makeup filters, stronger age verification, and an independent auditor to check Meta’s compliance for five years. California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which led the case, has not yet responded to Fortune ‘s request for comment beyond its public statements. TikTok and YouTube also did not respond to requests for comment, despite Meta publicly calling on both companies to adopt the same restrictions in an open letter posted the same day as the settlement.
In a statement to Fortune, Meta’s Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said they were calling on TikTok and YouTube to make the same commitments.
“I’m pleased to announce that Meta has reached an agreement with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general from around the country on a new set of rules governing teens’ use of social media,” Mahoney said. “Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away. As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead.”
The child advocacy group Fairplay, in a statement to Fortune, called the deal “a watershed moment for the growing movement to protect children from addictive and dangerously designed social media,” pointing to sleep protections like the nighttime block as “the most significant injunctive relief yet from Meta.” But its statement quickly turned to the same kind of gap Torrez flagged. “We are disappointed that the settlement does not turn off by default recommendation algorithms that connect kids to predators and send young people down dangerous rabbit holes,” the group said.
“In general, the settlement is too focused on offering parents tools rather than restricting harmful features. It also relies a lot on nudging users toward breaks, and we are skeptical that that will be effective. And even the financial penalties—while the biggest Meta has ever faced—are not large enough to fundamentally change Meta’s relentless targeting of youth.”
Fairplay tied its critique directly to a specific ask: a floor vote on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which has stalled in Congress for years despite what the group says is support from more than three-quarters of the U.S. Senate. “As internal documents have shown over and over, Meta and other social media companies deliberately design their products to addict kids, and that is the root cause of so many mental health difficulties and serious online harms for minors.”
The Center for Democracy and Technology said fixing one problem creates another. “Meta has agreed to implement several changes across its platforms as part of its settlement with 52 state attorneys general,” said Kate Ruane, the group’s director of the Free Expression Project, in a statement. “As part of that agreement, Meta is providing tools to help families make their own decisions about kids’ online experience and screen time—giving kids and their parents more choices and control is beneficial. But we also see the potential for significant risks to everyone’s privacy and free expression rights online, especially in the ways this settlement will subject all users to invas...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.