Nevada wins $184M in settlement with Meta, which will adopt new anti-screen time rules for kids
Social media giant Meta reached a landmark $17 billion settlement Wednesday with Nevada and 46 other states, along with the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. Meta must also make significant changes to its platforms to curb teen social media addiction.
As part of the settlement, Nevada will receive at least $178 million over 10 years, along with a one-time award of $6 million for data sharing violations by Facebook. The state could receive more money from Meta — bringing the total payout to $261 million — if Meta's competitors, including TikTok and YouTube, agree to similar settlements.
The deal ends a trial that began last week in a federal court in California relating to allegations that Meta endangered children by deliberately getting them hooked on the company's platforms.
The deal requires Meta to enact a wide array of restrictions on the Facebook and Instagram accounts of users younger than 18. Teens will not be able to use the apps for more than two hours daily, at night or during school and will receive pop-up notifications when they have scrolled for 15 minutes straight.
Meta will also give teens the option to have feeds display content chronologically — rather than algorithmically, which can exacerbate the apps' addictive qualities — and will limit their ability to use makeup filters or view their posts' "like" tallies.
At a Wednesday press conference, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) said the deal was the largest multistate settlement in history. He said Nevada's share of the money would "go directly to grant programs and services to help keep Nevada youth safe through education, through public awareness, through reduction of screen time, through parental digital literacy and encouragement in non-digital activities."
He also said some of the money would be used to expand youth mental health treatment.
Nevada has filed or joined a series of lawsuits related to youth social media use, mental health and child safety. In April, Nevada reached a $12 million settlement with online gaming platform Roblox for allegedly enabling adult predators to pursue children online. The state made similar claims in a lawsuit against Discord, another gaming platform, in May.
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