Meta has agreed to a proposed settlement that would put a hard default on how long teenagers can use Facebook and Instagram: two hours a day, combined across both apps, for every user under 18, liftable only by a parent. California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a bipartisan coalition of 51 attorneys general announced the proposed settlement on 26 August, eight days into a trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Nothing has changed on anyone’s phone yet — the terms only take effect if Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers signs off on the consent judgment.
The teen limits get stricter if TikTok and YouTube follow
The most unusual part of this deal sits in the attorney general’s own itemisation of the terms, and it is missing from most of the day’s coverage: the limits Meta agreed to are a floor that automatically tightens if its competitors match them. The AG’s release states that if other social media platforms agree to similar terms, the daily time limit drops from two hours to one, and the overnight block widens from midnight–6am to 10pm–7am.
Meta’s money is wired the same way. Per TechCrunch, 30% of the payout — roughly $5.3 billion of the figure it cites — is paid only if YouTube and TikTok implement a one-hour daily limit, Night Mode and age assurance, and those platforms agree to pay a matching 30% themselves. In other words, Meta has bought a settlement that costs it less and constrains it less unless its two biggest rivals sign up to the same rules. Meta’s chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said in a statement that teens move fluidly across dozens of apps and that the industry needs a shared solution, calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the framework. Read from a parent’s side of the table, the structure is also a bet that they will not.
What would actually change on a teen’s phone
These are the defaults the attorney general’s office lists, all applying to accounts registered to under-18s and running for ten years from approval:
- Two-hour daily cap — cumulative across Facebook and Instagram, lifted only by a parent. Meta’s own description adds alerts at 60 and 90 minutes and prompts every 15 minutes.
- Overnight block, midnight to 6am — the apps are blocked outright, again parent-only to override. Meta calls this Night Mode.
- Notifications muted 10pm to 7am and during school — school hours defined in the settlement as 8am to 3pm, 15 August to 15 June.
- Like and reaction counts hidden — on a teen’s own posts and on everyone else’s.
- Cosmetic procedure filters banned for under-18s.
- A non-personalised feed option — a feed that does not use an algorithm to target teens with content designed to keep them scrolling.
- Six-hour reporting response — Meta must answer 90% of teen reports of potentially harmful content within six hours.
- Age assurance — measures to detect under-18s, and to find and remove under-13s.
Direct messages sit outside all of it. TechCrunch reports that DMs are excluded from both the time limits and the muted-notification windows, which is defensible on its own terms and also a sizeable hole: the surface where a lot of the harm to teenagers actually happens is the one surface the clock does not touch.
The money, and why the number keeps moving
Bonta’s office puts the payment at up to $17 billion to the states over ten years, with California receiving $1.5 billion to $2.1 billion if the court approves. Treat the “up to” as load-bearing. Reputable outlets published different totals on the same day — TechCrunch $18 billion, CNBC a maximum of $16.7 billion — and the contingent tranche does not arithmetically reconcile the spread, so the attorney general’s own figure is the one to hold onto until the consent judgment itself is public. Meta says it will book a $10 billion legal expense in the third quarter, and it is not admitting wrongdoing.
“Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms — and will do it within months. We are talking about time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters, and so much more. Alongside a bipartisan coalition of my colleagues, I am proud to deliver this settlement that addresses the concerns at the core of our lawsuit and institutes real change, real transparency, and real enforceable protections for children on Facebook and Instagram — right now, no more waiting.”
— California Attorney General Rob Bonta
What parents should watch for
The suit was filed in 2023, alleging violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act along with California’s False Advertising and Unfair Competition laws; 29 states brought it, and 51 attorneys general joined the settlement announcement. The settlement also puts an independent auditor inside Meta with, in the AG’s description, expansive access to information and resources, plus an injunction barring Meta from making further false or misleading claims about its safety features — an unusually direct signal that the states did not believe the company’s previous safety messaging.
For a parent, the practical point is that none of this is switched on today, and when it is, the override sits with you. A two-hour cap a parent can lift is a real change only if parents know it exists, and Meta has a long track record of announcing teen protections that arrive quietly and are easy to route around. When the terms do take effect, check the account yourself in Instagram or Facebook’s Family Center rather than assuming the defaults held.
Sources: TechCrunch, CNBC
