Understanding the historic $17.1 billion Meta settlement

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The settlement has been called historic as it mandates Meta to make certain concrete changes regarding safety measures for children and teens [File] | Photo Credit: REUTERS

The story so far: On August 26, Meta reached a landmark settlement of up to $17.1 billion with 29 U.S. States, including California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, ending a lawsuit which the States had brought against the tech giant, accusing it of hiding harms caused by its platforms to children and deliberately using tactics to keep teens engaged or ‘addicted’ to its platforms. The settlement also came with certain conditions on how Meta should change its safety features on Instagram and Facebook.

The 233-page lawsuit, first filed against Meta in 2023, alleged that the company regularly collected data on children under the age of 13 without parental consent thus breaking various State and federal privacy laws. It also alleged that the company deliberately designed platforms to be addictive in order to keep teens engaged, leading to mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety etc. The suit accused Meta of refusing to “abandon its use of known harmful features” and instead, focusing solely on profits and financial gain over the safety of children.

The matter went to trial on August 18, 2026, in Oakland, California, with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. The trial saw internal documents from the tech giant pointing towards addictive behaviours among teens using Instagram as well as witness testimonies from former Meta employees stating that the company had repeatedly ignored warning signs.

Meta’s own company documents, of which a few had been leaked as far back as 2021 itself, revealed that a Facebook study had found that 13.5% of British teen girls in a survey said that their suicidal thoughts became more frequent after they joined Instagram. A study by internal researchers of the company on Instagram titled ‘Teen mental health deep dive’ had found that some of the problems, especially related to social comparison, were issues systemic of only Instagram and not social media as a whole.

As per a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation, the internal researchers had said that while other media mostly focus on the face and ‘jokey’ filters (SnapChat), Instagram focused on the body and lifestyle in general, which led to heightened comparisons and feelings of inadequacy.

A key witness for the States was Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety engineer, who stated on record that Meta was aware of the harm its products caused children, which included pushing content from sexual predators and violent and graphic images. He said that while he raised the issue to various Facebook and Instagram executives repeatedly, nothing was done to resolve it. He raised concerns about features such as the ‘infinite scroll’ which keep users addicted and also gains the company revenue vis-a-vis targeted ads.

Meta has however denied all these allegations.