Attorney General William Tong announced a $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. that will enforce sweeping child-safety reforms on Instagram and Facebook, with Connecticut set to receive up to $265.4 million.
The settlement resolves claims by 51 attorneys general that Meta designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and misled the public about platform safety. At least half of Connecticut's funds will go toward remediating youth harms from social media, including mental health and crisis intervention, after school and summer programming, and phone-free school zones. The agreement also resolves the multistate investigation Connecticut led into Meta's sharing of nonpublic Facebook user data with third parties like Cambridge Analytica ahead of the 2016 election.
Meta must pay states $12.19 billion over 10 years, rising to $17.1 billion if TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat agree to comparable safety terms, pending approval by U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Governor Ned Lamont said, "Social media is all too often anti-social. Tech companies have increasingly been taking advantage of kids, creating apps and algorithms that decrease their attention spans, drive them to become addicted, cause them to tune out real life, and harmfully impact their mental health and wellbeing. This multistate settlement is long overdue and requires strong protections for children's online safety. Connecticut has been taking steps to lead this charge, including through legislation that I was proud to sign into law this summer, but the best and strongest protections need to be enacted on a nationwide level."
The settlement requires Meta to implement a combined two-hour daily time limit across Instagram and Facebook with mandatory pauses, nighttime access blocks from midnight to 6 a.m., limited school-time notifications, stronger age verification, and safeguards against content related to eating disorders and self-harm.
Tong said, "Meta strip-mined the souls of America's children for maximum profit with abusive and addictive features that unleashed a youth mental health catastrophe. That ends now. Connecticut is joining nearly every state and territory in forcing Meta to pay over $17 billion, and to quickly adopt strong new protections for kids online."
Connecticut enacted legislation this year combating youth social media addiction that in some instances exceeds the settlement's terms, prohibiting companies from exposing minors to addictive algorithms and notifications without parental consent.
