Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has reached a $17 billion settlement with 47 states, including Iowa, that had filed lawsuits alleging the company’s platforms were harming children.
Iowa will get $124.4 million over the next decade from the tech giant. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird sued Meta in April, accusing the company of violating Iowa’s consumer protection laws with smart phone apps designed to get minors addicted to social media. “Importantly, they agreed to make changes so that their platform is better for kids and safer for kids,” Bird said, “and get rid of some of those very harmful aspects that they have that have been hurting teenagers.”
The settlement ends a trial in California where four other states were charging that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to keep teens on the platforms for hours and collected data from children under 13 without parental consent. Bird said as part of the national settlement, Meta has agreed to block teen usage on Facebook and Instagram from midnight to 6 a.m., plus parental control settings will be simplified. “One thing that’s very important to me — there are some filters, including a plastic surgery filter, that teenage kids were using. It’s causing major problems — emotional harm, depression, anxiety, self-harm,” Bird said. “Kids shouldn’t be using those kind of filters on their pictures and their friends’ pictures. It causes a lot of body image issues and we know it’s tough to be a teenager and tough to growth up and so I’m glad to see these changes being made.”
Bird said these changes are “a win for kids and the families that love them…Kids under 13 are not supposed to be on their platforms at all. They are implementing better age verification to keep kids off the platform so those kids do not have access to things that are not appropriate for them.”
Meta has also agreed to include a two-hour daily time limit for teenagers on Facebook and Instagram accounts and periodic “hard stops” to keep kids from endlessly scrolling through pictures, videos and other content. Bird plans to use some of the millions Meta will pay the state to audit the platforms to see if the company is following through on these promises, plus some of the money will finance counseling for kids diagnosed with mental health issues connected to their social media use. “One of the things the settlement agreement says is we need to make sure that we’re helping kids, especially those who have been harmed by social media addiction and other online dangers,” Bird said, “so we are committed to that.”
In a separate agreement, Meta has agreed to pay Iowa an additional $9 million to settle claims it shared informaton about Facebook users with third parties, including political consultants. The State of Iowa’s lawsuit against TikTok is scheduled to go to court next year. The state has also sued the online gaming platform Roblox.