Podcast & Analysis
Meta this week agreed to pay $17.1 billion to settle claims brought by 48 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories over the harm Facebook and Instagram caused to children’s mental health. Florida was not part of the deal.
- I sat down with Levin Papantonio partner Ned McWilliams, who was in the first Inweekly Rising Star class nearly 20 years ago, to unpack what the settlement actually means for Meta, for parents, and for the rest of the tech industry.
“This is just a day’s pay for Meta… unfortunately, this is just the cost of doing business for them.”
The Number Sounds Big. It Isn’t.
Ned did the math live on the show, and it’s sobering. Meta can pay over $17 billion out over 20 years. Spread across that timeline against the company’s roughly $1.5 trillion in annual revenue, the settlement works out to about 1.9% of Meta’s net annual income per year.
As Ned put it: Would you change your behavior over a 1.9% fine?
By the numbers: Over 20 years, the settlement amounts to less than one-fifth of a single year’s Meta profit. Individual payouts to affected users could be less than $50.
The Real Win: New Guardrails for Kids
Ned argues the headlines are focused on the wrong number. The more consequential part of the settlement is what Meta has agreed to potentially change about how its platforms operate for minors:
- No access to Facebook or Instagram between midnight and 6 a.m.
- No access during school hours on school days
- No evening notifications pushed to kids’ phones
- A proposed two-hour daily cap on minors’ use of the platforms
Ned believes that two-hour cap alone will cost Meta more in engagement and ad revenue than the entire $18 billion fine.
Why “Potentially” Matters
Those changes come with a catch: Meta’s commitment is contingent on competitors like TikTok and Snapchat adopting similar rules. Ned expects that to happen, predicting the platforms will “coalesce around these rules” as more state attorneys general pursue similar litigation nationwide.
Where Does Florida Stand?
Florida and Texas were among the states that declined to join this settlement. Ned couldn’t point to an official statement explaining why, but speculated Florida’s attorney general may be holding out for a larger penalty—treating $18 billion as insufficient “penance” rather than a final number.
Texas, notably, negotiated a separate $1 billion deal with Meta that may be folded into the broader publicized total.
Meta’s Message Posted on Instagram
An open letter to TikTok and YouTube to join us in supporting teens.
We are announcing an agreement we have reached with a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general across US states, territories, and the District of Columbia, building on our long-standing efforts to empower parents and support teens.
Through this agreement, we have set up a path toward industry-wide commitments to further empower parents by:
- Introducing a two-hour daily time limit,
- Turning off access to our apps at night as default,
- No notifications during school hours,
- Clear prompts and notifications to teens every fifteen minutes of continuous screen time,
- New parental supervision controls so parents can decide how their teens use our apps.
We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone. These protections will be truly effective if we work with our peers, TikTok and YouTube, to put the same measures in place.
All platforms should empower parents and support teens in these ways because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another. For meaningful progress to happen, we urge our peers to join us.
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