Meta agreed to pay $16.7 billion as part of a plea agreement with US states, which accused it of creating social media addiction in children. The Bloomberg agency reports it. The settlement comes as Meta’s trial is underway in California.
Meta agreed as part of the plea agreement to impose default daily limits and nightly blocks for teenage users of its social media apps, to strengthen age verification systems to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content and to provide additional tools to parents. However, the agreement does not contain any admission of guilt on the part of Zuckerberg’s giant.
«Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta. We want to do the right thing for parents and kids. That’s why we’ve worked with state prosecutors to set a new industry standard,” Meta said, noting that the settlement payment will be distributed annually over the course of 10 years. The company also specified that it would have to incur 10 billion in legal costs in relation to the agreement and invited other social giants to adopt the same standards. The settlement follows Meta and Google’s court defeat in March when they were found responsible for developing addictive apps.