Meta Agrees to Change Its Ways, But Not Admit Guilt - DTNS 5340

**Tom Merritt** (0:08)
This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, August 26th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and try to foster understanding.

**Sarah Lane** (0:18)
Today Meta will change its ways towards teens, but stop short of admitting it broke the law.

**Tom Merritt** (0:25)
And right before the show started, Apple announced it will hold its September 9th event in Cupertino. Foldable phone, foldable phone, foldable phone. I bet it's going to be iPhones, yeah.
This will be the first big product announcement after John Ternes takes over as CEO on September 1st. Anyway, I'm Tom Merritt.

**Sarah Lane** (0:42)
And I'm Sarah Lane.

**Tom Merritt** (0:43)
Let's start with what you need to know with that big story.

**Sarah Lane** (0:47)
All right, so we won't be getting a precedent setting case about social media this time. The lawsuit from 29 US state attorneys general against Meta has been settled out of court, just as we were getting to the juicy testimony, or what we thought would be anyway. The allegation was that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to drive compulsive use by children and tried to hide known risks of using those products.
They alleged that these decisions violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, as well as some consumer protection statutes. So, Tom, let's run through what got agreed to.

**Tom Merritt** (1:27)
Yeah, settle in folks.
There's a lot of stuff here. The settlement is a consent judgment. That means it carries the same legal weight and enforceability as a judgment issued after a full trial. So Meta can't weasel out of what it has agreed to. However, the agreement does not constitute an admission by Meta of any liability, wrongdoing or violation of local, state, federal or international law. So it doesn't go on their permanent record. They're not admitting guilt, but they do have to follow all of the things they have agreed to under the force of law.

**Sarah Lane** (2:07)
And before we get to some of the details, for everybody out there who's sort of like, but guilt or not guilt, like it means we've decided to settle, but we're not a previous felon.

**Tom Merritt** (2:21)
Yeah, and that helps in the court of public opinion a little, I suppose, but it also helps in future cases. And Meta has a lot of future cases coming. If they had admitted guilt, then in future cases, that would make it easier for the people suing them for other things, right?
Meta has agreed to implement the following changes to its apps. So if you are a teen, a default daily two hour time limit for users younger than 18, that is across Facebook and Instagram, cumulative. So you spend an hour on Instagram and then an hour on Facebook, boom, you hit the time limit. Now parents can increase that limit, but only the parents or guardians can. There is a total block on apps from midnight to 6 a.m. that can also be adjusted by the parents.
Meta will deliver clear prompts and notifications to teens every 15 minutes of continuous screen time to let them know, hey, you're still going, as well as reminders when they hit the 60-minute and the 90-minute of cumulative use marks. They will not get any notifications overnight or from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during school hours unless they are direct messages and alerts about their account security or safety. So direct messages under a teen account has to come from a friend or family, it can't come from strangers. And if there's like, hey, somebody's trying to break into your account, we'll get those DMs. But otherwise, from midnight to 6 a.m., they don't get any other notifications. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., when they should be in school, no notifications.

**Sarah Lane** (3:52)
Okay.
You know, I wonder how much, because I'm just trying to think of myself as a young teen, you know, living this life right now and saying, oh, now I've only got a couple hours a day. You know, where do I go? You know, how do I make the most of this time? Yeah, and I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing, but that changes behavior.

**Tom Merritt** (4:16)
Yeah, it's going to try to reduce it now. A lot of these kids are going to try to get around this by creating accounts that are adult, but we'll get to that in a second. Some other things that they're doing to reduce the addictiveness of the platform, no longer displaying the number of likes or reactions on posts, banning extreme makeup filters, in addition to an already existing block on cosmetic surgery filters. So, they're going from the most extreme to just like things that do makeup. A way to view a non-algorithmic feed on Facebook and Instagram, as well as periodic reminders that it's an option, and giving parents the option to make the non-algorithmic feed the default on the children's account. Now, algorithmic will still be the default, but there will be a lot of ways for either the parent or the child to change that.