Issue #27, August 28, 2026
With Meta’s settlement, the US chooses time limits over bans — a youth safety model Europe should watch
Sébastien Louradour
8/28/20262 min read
With Meta’s settlement, the US chooses time limits over bans — a youth safety model Europe should watch
Many analysts and journalists had been expecting a massive fine (of the scale of hundreds of billions) in the trial between Meta and the State of California, instead, a $18bn settlement has been reached with 47 states (excluding New Mexico, Florida, and Texas, the latter having negotiated a separate ~$1bn deal with Meta, which pushes Meta's total from the $17bn multistate settlement to the $18bn figure). The settlement includes a list of new safety rules that will play a defining role on how youth will use social media moving forward (details are to be found here). Many will comment on whether this is enough, I believe the real story is in the rules that have been agreed upon. Steering away from a ban for youth, the US is adopting a more pragmatic approach with rules that will nonetheless be significant for young users. The new rules include default daily time limits (2 hours) on social media and a block on overnight (between midnight and 6am) use that can only be lifted by a parent, enhanced parental supervision tools, age assurance measures to detect users under 18 and children under 13 that are on the platform, and the appointment of an independent auditor to oversee compliance. Other measures include a ban on displaying numbers of likes or reactions to users under 18, notifications are limited to hours outside school and curfew time, and the possibility to access a non-algorithmic feed.
This settlement is a defining moment for online youth safety, as it aims at involving the whole industry and setting up a level-playing field. The two-hour time limit could drop to one hour, and the midnight–6am curfew could expand to 10pm–7am, if other platforms agree to the same terms. In addition, Meta said about $5.3bn of the settlement would only be paid out if YouTube and TikTok each agreed to pay the combined same sum, as well as implementing some of the same usage limits and age-assurance measures. With ongoing trials for Snap too, we can easily suspect the rules defined in the Meta settlement will be the ones applying to the whole industry soon.
Meta avoids the age verification constraint, the settlement requiring age assurance instead. Social media and Operating system providers (Apple and Google) have been contesting who should be responsible for verifying age, and it’s likely the disagreement will continue which arguably remains the main weakness of the settlement.
Interestingly, the agreement avoids the pitfalls in which France has fallen recently with its youth ban law being canceled by the French Constitutional Council. The latter considered the law breached two fundamental rights, freedom of expression, and right to Privacy, because of the far reaching impact of a ban on freedom of expression and civic engagement, particularly given the ubiquitous presence of social media in democratic life, and the broad impact of age verification on the whole population and the privacy impact this will create.
Moving forward, even if the settlement avoids the thorny question of age verification, the rules agreed upon will have a significant impact on how youth use social media if other social media platforms agree to the similar terms. More importantly, the rules avoid touching freedom of speech while still setting up youth protections, a model that could represent a reasonable blueprint for governments willing to quickly set up meaningful protections. With the EU currently working on an EU-level youth safety framework, this could represent the way forward.