Alaska will receive roughly $16 million as part of a $17 billion multistate settlement holding Meta accountable for designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to kids. The funds (some estimates put the number closer to $21 million) will go toward enforcement, education and mental health treatment and research, paid out over nine years. The official press release provides the following details:
“The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
- Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
- Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
These are groundbreaking changes to Instagram and Facebook and more significant and comprehensive than previously ordered by any court. And perhaps most importantly, this settlement represents a down payment toward an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.“
Governor Mike Dunleavy is quoted as saying “This settlement was a necessary and imperative step to protect our children. Social media promised us connection and the ability to productively engage with each other in life’s joyful and mundane moments. What social media gave us was a generation of children scarred by bullying, harassment, doom-scrolling and predation.“
Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills said “As a mom of two, I can’t tell you what a relief this settlement brings to me knowing there will be better safeguards on Meta’s platform to keep teens healthy and positively engaged. As Attorney General, I am incredibly proud of all the work our consumer protection team brings to Alaskans on these and many other issues. Regardless of political party, attorneys general across the United States have consumer protection teams communicating and working together to tackle some of the largest and most important issues faced by consumers, and it is only through that collaboration that settlements like this are possible.”
Alaska Family Council commends AG Cori Mills for a task well done but reminds Alaska families this is just the beginning, not the end, of our fight for virtual accountability.
This settlement binds only one company. Kids were not harmed by just one platform, and this problem will not be solved with just one brokered settlement. We need Congress to act.
Don’t give Meta credit for these changes. Meta didn’t volunteer to make design alterations—it was forced to after being brought to court by twenty-nine AGs—and these updates come without any apology or admission of wrongdoing.
What the settlement does NOT do:
- Provide an admission of wrongdoing
- Hold accountable other platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger/DMs, VR, gaming, or AI
- Resolve private lawsuits
- Last forever—all obligations expire 10 years from the effective date
- Constrain Meta’s future advocacy
- Mandate specific content removal standards beyond Meta’s own policies
Congress must hold big tech accountable. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) passed Senate committee and is advancing. KOSA has the strongest protections to date, including a real, enforceable duty of care. Protecting kids goes beyond party lines. The bill is supported by two-thirds of the Senate. Congress returns to DC in mid-September, and we need the House to finish. Our lawmakers have the power to get KOSA to Trump’s desk before November.
CLICK HERE to encourage Senator Dan Sullivan to get KOSA passed
CLICK HERE to encourage Representative Nick Begich to get KOSA passed
