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Meta's $18B settlement mandates minor-safety design changes that hinge on unreliable age-verification technology
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Meta settled with 52 attorneys general for $18 billion over children's safety, agreeing to sweeping design changes on Instagram and Facebook that all depend on age-verification technology experts say has largely failed.
Every protection in the settlement, screen-time limits, overnight blocks, muted school-hours notifications, assumes Meta can accurately distinguish minors from adults, which current verification methods struggle to do. If the technology misclassifies users, the safety defaults either never activate for children or wrongly restrict adults, and the verification process itself introduces new data-privacy risks for everyone.
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Meta's settlement requires default two-hour screen-time limits, overnight app blocks from midnight to 6 a.m., muted notifications during school hours, and hidden like counts for accounts identified as minors.
Every design change depends on age-verification technology that experts say has largely failed, with methods like behavioral analysis, biometric scans, and government ID checks each carrying distinct flaws.
The $18 billion is paid over 10 years against Meta's reported 2025 revenue of more than $200 billion, which one litigator said blunts the financial impact.
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