Meta's $18bn settlement may hasten reckoning for social media on child safety

Meta's $18 billion settlement could accelerate a reckoning for social media regarding child safety.

Meta's decision to settle the case on Wednesday came as a surprise. I had anticipated weeks of courtroom drama as 29 states—nearly two-thirds of North America—challenged the US tech giant.

Technically, the trial focused on children's online privacy, based on the nearly 30-year-old US law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which predates all major social platforms today. The core issue was Meta's historical collection and use of data from children under 13 over several years. In reality, it represented a coordinated assault on the company's online safety record.

Meta, along with other social media applications, faces global scrutiny as 2026 is poised to be a year of reckoning for the entire industry, potentially signaling the end of "doomscrolling."

Meta has vigorously defended its commitment to protecting children on its platforms through numerous, costly lawsuits spanning many months. I have been invited to detailed presentations at Meta's London HQ, where senior executives have shown journalists the many safety tools the company has launched over the years to better protect children on its apps.

Conversely, I have also met parents of young people who have been harmed on these platforms, and others who admit to being overwhelmed by the sheer number of safety tools requiring their oversight—Meta had over 60 on Instagram alone at the last count.

The trial lasted only five days, concluding before CEO Mark Zuckerberg was scheduled to testify. However, it was a difficult period for Meta. Whistleblower Arturo Bejar, a former Instagram employee, claimed he had previously informed bosses about harmful incidents affecting children on the platform, but no action was taken. Another executive stated he did not recall writing in a slide deck that Meta sometimes opted to pay fines for regulatory violations rather than implement changes. Internal memos suggested the company was aware that opt-in tools typically had low adoption rates, yet it still launched safety features that were not enabled by default.

There had been intense speculation that Meta could have faced hundreds of billions of dollars in fines if it had lost. The worst-case scenario, a maximum penalty for every child who used one of its platforms for over half an hour daily during a 12-year period, was $1.4 trillion (£1 trillion)—roughly equivalent to the company's entire value. While that was never a realistic outcome, a more probable figure was still in the hundreds of billions. By comparison, up to $18 billion (over a 10-year period) is significantly smaller.

Meta is not admitting any wrongdoing. One could argue that settling protects its core business, as social networks remain its primary source of revenue. Instagram and Facebook's billions of users provide the company with a data goldmine, and adult user data can be leveraged for advertising. While Meta may claim to be laser-focused on AI, it still relies on the substantial revenue generated by its social apps.

As part of the settlement, the social media giant has agreed to implement several changes to how Instagram and Facebook operate for their youngest users. Some experts believe these changes are long overdue. New safety measures include a two-hour daily time limit across both platforms, which will be a default setting for known teen users. However, direct messaging on the platforms will not count towards this daily limit. Notifications will be muted between midnight and 6:00 AM, and on school days between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Likes on posts and content will also be entirely hidden for teens on the platforms. Most of these new features will become either default or an option for teens within six months. However, Meta's new efforts to better identify child users on its platforms will take up to a year to roll out.

I would be surprised if these measures remain confined to the US for long, as other countries will almost certainly be eager to adopt them. Meta also states that these new features will only truly help children if all its rivals adopt them as well. It is a highly competitive industry, but given the global backlash against social media and its impact on children, perhaps others like TikTok and Snapchat may have to follow suit.

The question then becomes whether children will still engage with these platforms once they are deliberately toned down into a much blander offering. This could potentially bring the social media era to a natural close, as existing adults gradually age out of it.

Arturo Bejar, the former Instagram engineer turned whistleblower, says the effectiveness of the new teen safety features will be the true test. "At the end of the day, Meta needs to be held accountable for results, not efforts," he told me.