DENVER — Meta has agreed to a multi-billion dollar settlement with dozens of states, stemming from a 2023 lawsuit accusing the company of targeting teenagers and harming their mental health.
The agreement could put up to $615 million into Colorado’s mental health help and resources and add restrictions to the way teenagers use Meta platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Denver7 reporter Alex Dowd spoke with experts about what this settlement means for your family in the video below:
If approved by the court, the settlement would add a two-hour daily time cap and night limit on teen accounts that can only be turned off by a parent, mute notifications during school hours, hide like counts and block teenagers from using filters imitating heavy makeup and cosmetic surgery.
The settlement also allows teenage users to opt-out of algorithmic feeds, which child psychologist and Panorama Psychology owner Dr. Gabe Casher says is what draws people into the app. He doesn’t expect many teenagers to choose not to use the algorithm.
“Their frontal lobe of their brain is not more powerful than billion-dollar corporations,” Casher said. “They're hooked. They're not gonna opt-out on their own. So, what they're gonna need are strong parents.”
Meta already ask for a user’s birthday when they sign up for an account and say that they’re working to “find and remove underage accounts from our apps and, as part of our agreement, we’re investing in even stronger technology to proactively catch accounts that may belong to under-13s.”
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The statement continues, saying they’re strengthening technology to identify the ages of account holders based on their behavior.
“Online enforcement of almost anything is a difficult thing,” said Steve Beaty, a computer science professor at MSU Denver. “I do believe they can do better than they have been, and the reason I believe that is that they have profiles on us. They know how old I am, where I live and work and all these other sorts of things. I believe they have built up profiles on the minors.”
Meta is encouraging other social platforms, like Youtube and TikTok, to follow suit and enforce the same safety measures for teenagers.
Beaty says he isn’t optimistic that those companies will adopt these restrictions, but says this Meta settlement is introducing an important conversation to the industry.
Even if these restrictions are enacted, Casher says it’s important parents stay involved in their child’s social media usage, so there’s safety and enforcement on both sides of the screen.
