Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

On August 26, 2026, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved a settlement between Meta Platforms Inc. and 29 state attorneys general in a federal bellwether case concerning alleged harms to children and teens from Facebook and Instagram. The approval ended the advisory jury trial before its fifth day.

State Allegations

The states alleged that Meta used addictive product features to attract and retain young users, misrepresented or minimized associated risks, and violated state consumer protection laws and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). Meta denied the allegations and did not admit liability or wrongdoing.

Consent Decree

Under the consent decree, Meta is expected to pay approximately $12.2 billion over 10 years. The total may rise to $17.1 billion if certain conditions are met, including comparable safety obligations and monetary resolutions involving other social media platforms (“SMPs”). The settlement also includes approximately $459 million to resolve outstanding state claims tied to Cambridge Analytica and creates a $75 million fund for participating states’ investigation and litigation costs.

Additionally, the settlement requires Meta to implement a 10-year framework addressing youth safety in participating states. These implementation measures include:

• Age assurance: Within one year of the settlement’s effective date, Meta must establish an age-assurance framework designed to assess whether users are under 13 (“U13”), and to develop and test a model to identify U13 users, remove identified U13 accounts, and report annually on enforcement results.
• Default time limits for teens: During an initial five-year phase, Meta will restrict teens from accessing its SMPs between 12 AM and 6 AM, disable push notifications from 10 PM to 7 AM, and limit access to its SMPs to two hours per day. Parental approval is required to reduce default time limits.
• Parental tools: For teen accounts, Meta must inform parents of the amount of time their teen spends on its SMPs, when a teen communicates directly with an adult user for the first time, if the teen created a secondary account, and if the teen has run repeated searches for terms associated with suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders.
• Non-personalized feed: Teen users may select a non-personalized feed, which is a feed showing posts from users with whom they are connected in chronological order, rather than based on an algorithm.
• Social comparison features: The number of likes or reactions on Meta’s SMPs is disabled by default and may only be visible with parental approval.

An independent third-party auditor selected by Meta and a committee of participating states will evaluate Meta’s implementation of the corrective actions, issue reports and public executive summaries, and review corrective-action plans for material compliance gaps.

Remaining Litigation

The settlement does not resolve all related litigation. Florida did not join and has said it will proceed to trial. New Mexico also remains outside the child-harms settlement after separately obtaining a $375 million jury verdict and a $567 million abatement award against Meta. The agreement also does not resolve claims by individual plaintiffs or public-school districts.

The consent judgment states that it does not create a private right of action, constitute an admission, establish a standard of care, or serve as legal precedent in nonparticipating states or other countries.