Meta Strikes $18 Billion Deal with Attorneys General Over Teen Safety

The settlement introduces significant restrictions for users under 18, pending judicial approval. These include a default two-hour daily time limit, a nocturnal lockout between midnight and 6 a.m., and a "school mode" that silences non-essential notifications during classroom hours. Meta will also implement stricter age-assurance technology to prevent underage access and provide parents with enhanced oversight tools, such as alerts for secondary account linking and changes to security settings.

Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, C.J. Mahoney, emphasized that these measures are intended to be universal. The company is explicitly conditioning a portion of the $18 billion settlement—roughly $5.3 billion—on whether TikTok and YouTube implement comparable protections. If these competitors join the framework, the current five-year commitments for time and night limits will extend to a decade, and the restrictions will tighten further, including a reduction of the daily limit to one hour.

To ensure transparency, Meta will fund an independent research foundation and submit to annual compliance audits for the next five years. The company expects to record a $10 billion legal expense in the third quarter of 2026 to account for the initial phase of the agreement, which will be paid out in annual installments.