Meta agrees to pay up to $18Bn in record legal settlement

**Ed Butler** (0:01)
A landmark settlement for child safety, they're saying.

**Rob Bonta** (0:04)
This is a significant victory for families across the country, for parents, for children, a milestone moment. We have secured the changes we were after.

**Ed Butler** (0:13)
Limits on screen time for kids, but will it really make them safer online?

**Arturo Bejar** (0:18)
The agreement as it stands, our kids will not be any safer, they'll just get less exposure to things.

**Ed Butler** (0:25)
This is World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Yes, I'm Ed Butler and today we are looking at one of the biggest court settlements in history. Meta has agreed to pay some $18 billion after a court case brought by US states accusing the tech giant of addicting and harming children. We get into the details. Also in the show, what do Nvidia's latest results tell us about AI's economic state of health? And we remember Dolly Parton, the businesswoman.
So the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, of course, has agreed to restrict American teenagers' use of its platforms as part of an $18 billion settlement with states. The company had been accused of harming children with all of its platforms. While denying wrongdoing, Meta says it will introduce stronger age verification measures and daily usage limits. It says a third of the payout is contingent on rival social media platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, doing something similar with restrictions as well. Victoria Hinks, a bereaved parent whose daughter died by suicide back in 2024, she welcomed the deal.

**Victoria Hinks** (1:43)
I think it's a victory and it's never going to bring my daughter back, but it's going to send a powerful message. This is the third time now that they've been found liable. And I think people know, it's like time's up. People understand that this is not acceptable. This could happen to anyone. You think this can't happen to your child? I, we didn't think it could happen to our child. And we are a very tech savvy family. My husband's an engineer.
I work in tech. We had things locked down. The controls didn't work. So they need to make sure these work because she could just press a button on her phone that would say, would you like another minute? And she would just hit another minute, another minute.

**Ed Butler** (2:20)
Well Rob Bonta is the Attorney General of the state of California. It's also one of those who brought the case. He also welcomed the outcome as a victory.

**Rob Bonta** (2:28)
This is a significant victory for families across the country, for parents, for children, for those who are suffering in silence and those who are suffering in public. This is a major breakthrough, a milestone moment, a watershed moment.
Because when it comes to protecting our children's mental health, there is no time to lose. Instead of getting tied up in years of trials and appeals, we have secured the changes we were after.

**Ed Butler** (2:57)
That's California's Attorney General. So let's get into this with our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali. Lily, this isn't just, well, this isn't at all an admission of guilt, is it, by Meta? $18 billion, though, split between the states over 10 years, most of the states anyway.
Some of them are still holding out, but this is less than the $200 billion in the original claim, isn't it? So, I mean, remind us what essentially Meta is committing to.

**Lily Jamali** (3:28)
So Meta is committing to, as you say, pay up to, operative phrase there, up to $18 billion to these states, contingent upon other apps, such as TikTok and Google's YouTube, doing the same, making similar changes. So these states don't get the full amount without that. And let's talk about those changes. So some of the things that really stood out to me include daily time limits for teen users, two hours across Meta's apps, Instagram and Facebook.
Usage restrictions overnight. Limits to notifications during the school day. Stronger parental controls. What really stands out to me about all of that is that these are changes that would be made by default. There's not an opt-in clause there, whereby teenagers have to agree they want to do this. It's automatic. And that is really key to increasing the uptake. Right.

**Ed Butler** (4:30)
How does it get enforced? So basically, Meta gets penalized, gets fined, if what? If we find that kids are online for longer.

**Lily Jamali** (4:39)
I mean, I actually don't have a solid answer to that question. What would sort of scuttle this deal? It does seem like all sides came to the table in good faith. What I will say is that there are critics out there, including the first witness at trial, Arturo Bejar, who's a Facebook slash Meta whistleblower, who says this isn't enough. It's not an effective way of managing this issue because Meta is still ultimately in control. They get to set the terms. They get to define what these terms are that are in the agreement. They get to pick presumably the third party that's going to help with age verification. So there's still a lot of agency left within Meta's hands as a result of this deal in the view of critics like him.