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The social media giant Meta has agreed to pay nearly $17 billion and retool its privacy protections for children in a legal settlement that ends a closely-watched case brought by 29 states, court documents show.
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The states argued in federal court in Oakland that Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ignored evidence that its platforms were addictive and harmful to children, pursuing profit from their online data instead. The agreement reached Wednesday brings to a close a dramatic trial in the case that began last week.
The agreement also called for an additional payment of $459 million to California, New Mexico, Washington, D.C., and Illinois to settle other privacy disputes. The funds, which included $2 billion for California, were to be distributed among 52 U.S. states and territories. Meta also agreed to pay the states $75 million to reimburse legal and investigative costs.
“This is a significant victory for families across the country,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Wednesday. “This is a major breakthrough — a milestone moment.”
He said it was “telling” that Meta settled partway through the testimony of Instagram head Adam Mosseri, and before Zuckerberg was set to appear.
Under the settlement, funds were to be distributed not just among the 29 states that sued, but among 52 U.S. states and territories. Meta did not admit wrongdoing, but agreed to a detailed plan to improve privacy and safety protections for minors on its platforms.
The company agreed to develop programs to determine when children under 13 were using its platforms and remove them if they didn’t have parental permission to use the platforms. It also agreed to improve parental controls and delete data gathered while determining users’ ages if they were under 13. No data on young children was to be used to target them with ads or to train the company’s algorithms, the settlement agreement said.
The agreement also includes provisions banning teens from using apps that show what they would look like with cosmetic surgery, and seeing how many “likes” they get on a post. It requires the company to develop programs aimed at stopping teens from using their platforms at overnight, during school hours, and for extended periods of time.
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Teens will be barred from using Facebook and Instagram for more than two hours per day without express parental permission, and will receive prompts when they have been on either or both of the platforms for 15 minutes straight. The company will also develop a way for teens to opt out of the algorithm that tailors posts based on an individual’s history on the sites.
The company is also barred by the agreement from engaging in “false, misleading, or deceptive” communications about the safety of its platforms, the settlement shows. The two sides also agreed to hire an independent auditor to monitor the company’s progress in implementing the plan.
“I’m pleased to announce that Meta has reached an agreement with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general from around the country on a new set of rules governing teens’ use of social media,” Meta Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said in a statement posted on the company’s website. “The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms.”
The Menlo Park-based company called on its competitors to take similar steps and said about a third of its financial payments would be withheld until YouTube and TikTok paid a similar amount and implemented controls on screen time.
“It’s time for the tech industry to start listening,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. He called the settlement “a win for California’s kids.”
The funds were to be paid over 10 years and used by the states for purposes that included teen mental health programs, outdoor activities to get teens off screens, safety investigations and digital literacy efforts, the settlement said.
The agreement, filed Wednesday in Oakland federal court, still required approval from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Any opposition was required to be filed by Sept. 9, with further discussion due by Sept. 16, according to an order Gonzalez Rogers issued Wednesday.
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This story was originally published August 26, 2026 at 11:43 AM.