A federal judge in California approved an $18 billion settlement between Meta and 48 US states, the District of Columbia, and three US territories on Wednesday. The case had accused Facebook and Instagram of deliberately designing features that addicted children to their platforms while concealing the harm those features caused.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who had been overseeing an active trial in Oakland, signed off on the agreement. She wrote that the settlement "reflects a fair, reasonable, comprehensive, and good faith approach not only to provide monetary relief, but importantly, to change conduct in a way that attempts to meaningfully address the negative impacts of the social media platforms at issue."
Meta denied any wrongdoing.
The settlement is the largest regulatory penalty ever paid by a Big Tech company. It surpasses both the $5 billion fine Meta paid to the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the European Union's $5 billion fine against Google's Android business in 2018. Against the scale of Meta's finances, the figure looks different. The company reported roughly $200 billion in revenue for 2025, which means it earns the settlement's equivalent value approximately every 33 days.
The payment structure Meta actually agreed to
Not all $18 billion flows directly to states. Meta is liable for $12.7 billion, or 70% of the total, in annual installments over 10 years. The remaining 30%, approximately $5.3 billion, only becomes payable if YouTube and TikTok each meet two conditions: they must adopt comparable child-safety changes including a one-hour daily time limit and nighttime block, and they must together pay a matching $5.3 billion to the states.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state stands to receive at least $1.5 billion. New Jersey expects a minimum of $525 million. Massachusetts is in line for at least $366 million, and Virginia's share reaches $353 million.
"This is a major moment to clean up an industry that has been hurting our kids," Bonta said.
Beyond the money, Meta must add a hard daily time cap on Facebook and Instagram for minors, cut off push notifications during weekday school hours, and roll out enhanced age-assurance measures. Social comparison features such as visible like counts face new restrictions. Parental controls will be expanded. An independent auditor will evaluate how Meta puts the changes into effect and whether they work.
What a former Meta engineer told the court
The settlement arrived during an active jury trial. Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, had testified the week before the announcement. He told the court that throughout his time at the company, decisions centered on how long people used the platforms rather than whether that use caused harm.
"If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money," he said.
Béjar had previously testified before Congress and had co-signed public appeals for stronger oversight of Meta's products for children. His account of internal priorities directly contradicted how the company has publicly described its approach to safety.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, also took the stand before the settlement was reached and defended Meta's record. Mark Zuckerberg had been expected to testify before a jury when the deal was announced. In January 2024, Zuckerberg appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and apologized directly to parents in the room whose children had been harmed on Meta's platforms.
The legal effort traces to 2023, when a coalition of states filed a federal lawsuit built substantially on Wall Street Journal reporting from 2021. Those reports revealed that Meta's own internal research showed Instagram harmed teenage girls' body image and mental health, and that the company had not made those findings public. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said Wednesday that "for years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health." He added that the settlement "will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm."
Why researchers say the core problem remains untouched
Jonathan Haidt, an NYU business professor and author of "The Anxious Generation," welcomed the settlement and then identified what it left alone.
"Meta's AI-powered recommendation engine is still running, engineered to maximize young people's engagement even with content that harms them," he wrote on X.
He continued:
"The work ahead is to make them change that design — not just how long kids can access Instagram's harmful design, and not just on an opt-in basis. This is a great step. Let's all work together to make sure it's not the last."
The recommendation system, which determines what content surfaces for each user, sits outside the scope of what the states negotiated. The settlement also does not cover WhatsApp or Messenger, and Meta's AI chatbots fall outside its reach. Critics have argued for years that child-safety features added at the account level matter far less than how the underlying feed algorithm handles content that leads vulnerable users toward material about self-harm or eating disorders.
How the bipartisan investigation came together
The federal case was built by attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont, a coalition that crossed party lines. The effort drew on years of advocacy from child safety researchers, parents, and former Meta employees who had grown frustrated with internal complaints that produced little change.
Meta said in a statement that the settlement would help "set a new industry standard" and called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same safety measures. The company's framing of rivals in the announcement was notable given that whether it pays the final 30% of the settlement depends entirely on whether those companies agree to equivalent terms. Neither had responded by the time of publication.
The AP reported the settlement figure as $17 billion across 47 states in its accounting, with Meta's $18 billion figure appearing to incorporate a large component attributed to Texas, which pursued its own claim.
Matvii Diadkov
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