Meta agrees to pay billions to settle claims its platforms harm children

Meta - the giant tech company that owns socials like Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp - has agreed to pay up to $18 billion (that's over £13 billion) to settle claims its platforms harm children.

Meta has agreed to pay the money and make changes to its apps to end the trial brought by lots of US states.

A settlement is an agreement between sides in a court case to end a trial early, without either side admitting wrongdoing.

It's a bit of a complicated story so let's break it down together...

The case against Meta was brought to court in the US in 2023 by 29 US states, including California and New York.

They accused Meta of breaking laws designed to protect children online.

The US states said Meta's apps were designed to keep children and teenagers using them for as long as possible.

They pointed to features such as videos playing automatically, Instagram Stories and lots of notifications.

They also said Meta made it too difficult for young people to take a break from the apps and did not always give people a clear picture of how safe the platforms were for children.

Another accusation was that Meta collected and used children's personal information in ways it should not have.

Meta has denied the claims.

The court case has been suspended because Meta said they would settle the case.

That basically means they will pay lots of money and make changes to their services, so both sides (Meta and the states) will agree to end the court case without waiting for a judge to decide who wins.

The trial began just over a week ago, and was expected to last six weeks.

The judge in charge of the trial, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, has said that she is likely to give this deal the green light.

For now, she says she will suspend the trial.

"I'm quite happy," she said.

California is one of the states suing the company.

And according to a top lawyer for the government there, the settlement includes the following things:

This is just a few examples of some of the changes, the full list is really long.

Meta has consistently denied claims that it has failed teens.

Meta welcomed the settlement, calling it an "important step", and saying it hopes to set a new "industry standard".

They said that "ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms" is really important to them.

"We want to get this right for parents and teens," the statement says.

Meta also said TikTok and YouTube should make the same safety changes for their younger users.

"Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us," said Meta.

This case happened in the United States but it's likely to have effects worldwide.

But you might remember that the UK government wants to bring in a social media ban for under 16s.

Other countries have already done similar things.

In France, a social media ban for children will start in January 2027.

And in Australia, social media has been banned for under 16s since 2024.

Zoe Kleinman is the BBC's technology editor, and she specialises in big tech, online safety and social media.

Zoe told Newsround: "Social media is under pressure to make changes in lots of countries around the world, not just in North America.

"For a long time, some people have been really worried about children not being protected enough when they're using them – even older teens at 16 or 17 can find themselves having bad experiences that they may feel they can't cope with.

"The companies which run the social networks want people to have a good time on their apps, and part of that includes making them really fun so they want to stay there for as long as possible.

"Things like never running out of new things to scroll through, and counting the number of people who like a post, all make it easy to spend lots of time there and not want to go and do other things. When you're an adult, this means the company can also make sure you see lots of adverts and that makes them lots of money.

"Taking those engaging features away might help children balance their time better but it will also create a very different social media experience. And it will only work if all the apps do the same thing.

"Perhaps social media won't be as much fun anymore – but the experts hope that if children spend less time on the platforms, they're also less likely to be scared by negative content or bullied."