Overview
- Meta announced Thursday that it will automatically apply new safeguards to under‑18 accounts on Facebook and Instagram, including a combined two‑hour daily limit and a default nighttime block from midnight to 6 a.m.
- The company also said it will silence most notifications during school hours, hide like counts by default, default teen Instagram accounts to private, add periodic usage prompts, and expand parental supervision tools.
- The settlement guarantees roughly $12.7 billion paid over years with up to about $5.3 billion more if major rivals adopt comparable protections, and the courts have required most measures to remain in place for ten years with independent audits and funded research.
- Advocates and some commentators say the package is insufficient because many protections are defaults that can be changed, reliable age verification risks user privacy, enforcement against circumvention is unclear, and teens may shift to platforms not covered by the deal.
- The agreement grows from years of state litigation over internal Meta research and has renewed calls for Congress or industry‑wide rules to create universal age checks and durable safeguards as rollout of some features is expected in months and tougher age‑assurance work could take up to a year.