Meta to make 'massive' changes to Instagram and Facebook
Meta will be making fresh changes to its platforms in order to protect children online in a landmark trial.
The tech company has agreed to pay 17 billion dollars (£12.5 billion) and add child safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
And amendments to safety features on the platforms will now include a cap on time limits and pauses for children, as well as eliminating push notifications during certain hours for young users.
This follows a battle against teenage social media addiction, with the firm settling claims filed by 47 US states.
Advert
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023, but the deal cuts short the trial, which was expected to see chief executive Mark Zuckerberg give evidence before a jury in federal court in California.
The agreement is worth 353 million dollars (£186 million) in Virginia and is one of the biggest in state consumer protection history, the state’s attorney general Jay Jones said in a statement on Wednesday (26 August).
He said: “For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health.
He added the settlement 'will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm'.
The case accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public.
It also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began giving his evidence late on Tuesday (25 August) and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. Nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.
This is the first time Meta has been forced to change how its platforms function, however the company has denied wrongdoing.
Meta to implement new safety features
Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a 'hard cap' on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.
It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in 'robust' age assurance measures and 'age-appropriate' content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.
There will also be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as 'like' counts.
It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found that the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.
Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.
Child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing.
Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, said while giving evidence last week that Meta consistently prioritised profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental wellbeing.
“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.
Meta 'pleased' to have reached agreement and call on others to follow
On the agreement, C.J. Mahoney, Chief Legal Officer at Meta, said: “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.
"The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms.
"Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us.
"Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away.
"As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead.”
Topics: Meta, Technology, Social Media, Facebook, Instagram
James Holt