A sweeping multibillion-dollar settlement with Meta could bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the D.C. region while dramatically changing how children use Facebook and Instagram.
Meta has agreed to pay at least $12.1 billion — and potentially as much as $17.1 billion — to more than 50 states and U.S. territories to settle their claims that it designed its social media platforms to keep children hooked while misleading the public about the risks.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb called the agreement a major victory for young people.
“The financial aspects of this deal are indeed significant and historic, but what makes it so important is that it involves mandatory changes to the way Meta does business,” Schwalb told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli.
Under the settlement, children will face a combined two-hour daily limit on Facebook and Instagram, along with mandatory breaks intended to interrupt continuous scrolling.
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The platforms will also block access to feeds between midnight and 6 a.m., silence notifications overnight and eliminate push notifications during school hours.
Other changes include stronger age-verification measures, expanded parental controls and restrictions on features tied to social comparison, including visible “like” counts and some beauty filters, “that we know have drawn really adverse mental health and physical health consequences for kids,” Schwalb said.
The changes are supposed to be reviewed by an independent auditor.
The District will receive at least $90.4 million and could receive up to $129.4 million under the agreement.
Virginia is guaranteed $353 million, while Maryland could receive up to $327 million.
“Certainly the specifics will be worked out over time, but I imagine the focus of those monies will be on protecting children, addressing mental health issues, having more counselors and mental health professionals in school, expanding after-school programming so young people are able to be active, not passively sitting and looking at their phones,” Schwalb said of D.C.’s share of the settlement.
The final size of the nationwide settlement depends partly on whether other major social media companies agree to similar terms. Meta will pay an additional $5 billion if other platforms adopt comparable protections.
Schwalb said the agreement could mark the beginning of broader changes across social media.
“We know that the tech industry is not just Meta, it’s not just Facebook and Instagram, but there are other social media platforms that present the same kind of dangers. And this will be the first, but certainly not the last of focuses for me, for my team, and I think for AGs around the country in terms of protecting the public from the harms that social media presents,” he said.
WTOP’s Nick Iannelli contributed to this report.
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