Meta will pay up to $18 billion over how its recommendation systems held teenagers — and a third of it only lands if YouTube and TikTok match

Meta settled on 26 August with 29 US states that had sued it in 2023, alleging it designed Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children while knowing the harm, and collected data from under-13s without parental consent in breach of the federal children's privacy law. The headline figure is up to $18 billion, but the structure is the interesting part: 70 percent is paid over ten years, and the remaining 30 percent — roughly $5.3 billion — only becomes due if YouTube and TikTok put up matching money and adopt the same rules, including a one-hour daily cap, an overnight block and age-assurance checks. Meta will book a $10 billion legal charge in the third quarter. The behavioural terms run ten years and change the defaults for every user under 18: a two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram combined that only a parent can raise, warnings at 60 and 90 minutes and then every 15, automatic lock-out from midnight to 6am, notifications muted from 8am to 3pm, like counts hidden, extreme beauty and cosmetic-surgery filters blocked, tighter private-account defaults and stronger limits on adults finding or following teens. Direct messages are exempt from the timers. Meta also commits to age-assurance technology for spotting underage or mis-registered accounts. It admits no wrongdoing, and a judge still has to approve the deal.

✓ Verified · 4 sources

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