Meta will restrict teen use of Facebook and Instagram to 2 hours a day and block access from midnight to 6am without parental consent, under settlements worth up to $18 billion.
The agreements, announced Wednesday, resolve claims brought by nearly all US states alleging that Meta Platforms designed its services to encourage compulsive use among children and misled the public about platform safety.
Meta also agreed to disable most push notifications for teenage users during school hours, from 8 am to 3 pm, and to strengthen controls intended to prevent access to age-restricted content.
The company will make guaranteed payments of about $12.7 billion, with another $5 billion contingent on whether Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt similar protections.
Maximum payments include about $16.7 billion to 47 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. California could receive $2.2 billion and New York $1.1 billion, while Texas reached a separate settlement worth more than $1 billion.
Meta denied wrongdoing. The settlement does not require the company to abandon personalised recommendations or targeted advertising.
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Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser called the agreement significant for protecting children, while US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the main settlement Wednesday.
Meta also agreed to pay $459 million to resolve state privacy claims linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Florida and New Mexico were not part of the settlement and are continuing separate legal actions.
