On February 19, 2026, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg left federal court in downtown Los Angeles after defending the company in a landmark social media addiction trial.
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metaA watershed social media trial just concluded in California, but attention has now shifted to the industry as a whole, with TikTok, YouTube and Snap set to be the next to ignite.
The owners of Instagram and Facebook have settled in the second week of a lawsuit brought by a coalition of dozens of U.S. states that claimed the tech giants misled the public about the harm their platforms caused to young users.
The agreement includes payments of up to $18 billion, some of which are tied to conditional actions by other social media giants. Meta also said it would make fundamental changes to its platform for users under 18. These include, but are not limited to, a two-hour daily usage limit that can only be lifted by parents, disabling extreme makeup and cosmetic surgery filters, stricter age verification measures, and a night mode.
Meta said it would pay only 70% of the settlement, or about $12.7 billion, to states over 10 years. The remaining $5.3 billion will go to rival TikTok and alphabetYouTube is making similar changes to its app for younger users.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is co-leading the case along with New Jersey, Colorado and Kentucky, said the Meta settlement “signals the rest of the industry that we are not done yet, and we expect a similar outcome from them.”
“No company wants what Meta faced in Oakland,” Rob Larca, professor of practical management at Tulane University and author of “The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profit Into Power,” told CNBC.
“I expect TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat to make changes before they face such an event. These platforms rely entirely on the trust of parents, users, and advertisers, and this settlement reflects a business decision regarding reputational risk that the boards of these other companies must now make as well,” Larca added.
CNBC has reached out to YouTube, TikTok and Snap for comment.
Social media giants were already under added pressure this year as governments around the world considered enforcing bans on social media for youth. Meanwhile, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Snap are facing repeated lawsuits.
Meta and YouTube lost a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles earlier this year. The lawsuit was brought by plaintiffs who claim that addictive features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling have damaged their mental health.
Meta also lost another social media lawsuit brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres after a court found the company violated the state’s child safety law and ordered it to pay more than $900 million in fines.
“We continue to fight”
Now that the meth lawsuit has been settled, California’s Bonta said he will “continue the fight across social media,” moving forward with lawsuits against major companies like TikTok, Snap and YouTube.
Bonta said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday that he would approve Meta mentioning other platforms in the settlement. “That’s appropriate. This is a problem that requires an industry-wide solution.”
He explained that California is currently pursuing aggressive litigation against TikTok.
“As we are currently suing TikTok, we are trying to ensure that they adopt similar practices and initiatives as Meta, and we are very interested in that.” snap YouTube too,” Bonta said.
Bonta, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and 14 other state attorneys filed a lawsuit against TikTok in 2024, alleging violations of consumer protection laws. They said TikTok is harming young users with addictive features that maximize the time they spend on the platform. The case is ongoing.
Bonta added that the state has been in contact with Snap and is in talks with TikTok in hopes of bringing YouTube to the negotiating table as well.
Larca said Meta, which is trying to position itself as a leader in online youth safety, has ignored these issues for years.
“Let me be clear about how we got here: Congress never passed a law to prevent it, so the attorney general had to step in after the damage had already been done.
“These new rules were negotiated in settlements with regulated companies, not by elected policymakers, and Meta is working to ensure its competitors follow the same rules,” Larca said.
