metaA landmark settlement in a child safety case could mark the company’s social media platform’s biggest change yet for teenage users.
The social media giant’s settlement with more than 40 states, the District of Columbia and several territories includes payments of up to $17 billion over 10 years, changes to its app for teens and stricter age guarantees.
“This is the largest amount ever paid in a case like this,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the case, told CNBC in an interview after the settlement. “And $17 billion can deliver many benefits to preventing and remediating harm to children’s mental health.”
Perhaps even more meaningful for Meta, which generated $201 billion in revenue last year, is the need to implement a variety of product changes for users ages 13 to 17.
The list includes a default limit of two hours for app use, blocking apps from midnight to 6 a.m., and muting notifications during school hours. Teen users will also have likes hidden, decorative filters disabled, options to control video autoplay, and the ability to choose a non-algorithmic feed.
Meta said it plans to roll out many of the default protections within the next six months, but age guarantees could take up to a year to roll out. This is stricter age verification requirements to keep children off the platform and accurately identify teens who lie about their age.
To address this complex problem, Meta is building a new predictive model that identifies users under 13 or in the 13-17 age range by capturing data such as who a user connects with, who they follow, who their followers are, and birthday greetings.
Age verification is notoriously difficult, especially without facial recognition, which Meta uses. This challenge sparked a debate between Meta and app store owners. apple and google As to which entity should be held responsible. Meta is also working on age-restricting technology in Australia to comply with laws banning social media for children under 16, but teens are finding ways around it.
After years of denying that its products harm children, Meta is now poised to become a leader in a wave of change, edging out rivals YouTube and snap To join them.
In addition to paying $5.3 billion of the $17 billion settlement only if TikTok and YouTube agree to pay the same amount, Meta announced it was setting a default one-hour limit on its apps that it would then adopt. TikTok and YouTube did not respond to requests for comment from Meta or CNBC.
Not everyone is happy with the $17 billion settlement, which is just a fraction of the $200 billion the state AG originally sought.
Florida Attorney General James Usmayer, who was not part of the settlement and is filing a separate lawsuit against Mehta, told CNBC that he was unhappy with Mehta’s promise of five years for some features and 10 years for others.
“Child protection is not a short-term, temporary goal. They are violating Florida law, and our law is permanent, not temporary. These changes need to be permanent,” Usmeyer said.
Like other social media companies, Meta still faces other lawsuits, but questions remain about how much the changes in Teenage will affect its bottom line.
Meta says less than 1% of the revenue is made by teens, and eMarketer reports that teens spend less time on Instagram and Facebook than they do on TikTok and YouTube. But the added restrictions could potentially direct teenage users of Instagram and Facebook to other platforms without restrictions, potentially impacting Meta’s appeal to teens who have grown into adults and are far more valuable in terms of ad revenue.
“Children are extremely valuable to Meta,” said Kelly Stonelake, a former Meta board member and current child safety advocate. “This is actually pretty devastating to the meta’s current strategy of limiting the types of hooks they can give young people.”
Watch the video to see how Meta implements large-scale changes to its platform.
