Meta to withhold $5bn unless YouTube, TikTok agree to similar terms
Meta this week announced new restrictions on how teenagers can use its platforms as part of an $18bn (£13.25bn) settlement with US states over social media’s effects on children. The deal covers Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
The measures the company said it would impose include a daily two-hour time cap, hidden like counts, removal of video autoplay, muted push notifications during school hours and a ban on extreme make-up filters. Meta also said it would change its age-verification process and parental controls and appoint an independent auditor to check that the measures are implemented and maintained.
Several US parents who spoke to the BBC described the restrictions as helpful while remaining skeptical. They said they felt stuck between the inability to cut their children off from social media and the inability to protect them from the harms they believe the platforms cause, and that they were waiting to see how much of a difference the new rules would make.
Elizabeth Cardner, a mother of two girls in Houston, Texas, said the changes would “save a few arguments at home” but “doesn’t go far enough.” Cardner said banning her daughters from social media entirely would only result in them being left out by their peers. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” she said, describing what she characterized as an unwinnable position for parents trying to keep their children off the platforms.
Cardner’s 14-year-old daughter, Paige, said the restrictions could lead to “more real-life scenarios” and less “fake content” dominating social media. She and her sister both said they approve of hiding like counts and restricting filters. But Paige said she expected any gains to be short-lived since AI is evolving. “People will find new ways to have fake filters, and correct certain parts of their videos or pictures,” she said. “So I think it’ll help until people use other resources to try and find new ways to do that.”
Andria Rose, another mother of two teens near Boston, Massachusetts, told the BBC she feels “defenceless.” “No matter how much I protect my kids, Facebook, Instagram — they’re coming in and literally, like, taking them out of their rooms,” she said. Rose called Meta’s changes “fantastic” but said she did not believe the company was fully addressing the problem. “They’re trying to limit the drug, but they’re not controlling the drug,” she said. “They’re still dealing.” Rose added that her own use of social media costs her sleep at night. “I’m hooked,” she said. “So what do you think is going to happen to a kid?”
The settlement was announced on Wednesday in the middle of a highly anticipated trial in which Zuckerberg was expected to testify, and it did not include any admission of fault from Meta. The original lawsuit was filed in 2023 by 29 US states, which alleged Meta deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive, lied about the risks and violated a federal law on collecting children’s personal information. The settlement announced this week expanded to 48 states plus the District of Columbia and three US territories.
Several studies have found social media to be harmful to mental health, especially for children. A BBC investigation last year found children being exposed to content about bullying, suicide and weapons on social media platforms. For Rose, Meta’s payment “is like throwing a couple of dollar bills at a problem,” given the company’s earnings and what she said was the industry’s pandemic-era profit from children.
Joanie Story, a mother of four boys on Long Island, took issue with a separate part of Meta’s announcement: the company’s plan to withhold $5bn of the settlement unless YouTube, TikTok and others enter similar agreements. Meta also said it would tighten its time cap to one hour if other platforms implement comparable restrictions. Story described that approach as “petty.” “That’s like saying: ‘You know, we have the ability to fix what is broken, but we’re only gonna fix it halfway,’” she said.
Story nonetheless described the new rules as “good controls.” She told the BBC that two of her sons had been accidentally exposed to explicit content on a non-Meta platform, and that one of the boys has been in therapy for four years. She described the experience as comparable to abuse, according to the BBC.
Mark SooHoo, a father of three who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, said social media and smartphones are inseparable for young people and that both are harmful. He belongs to Wait Until 8th, an organization in which parents pledge not to give their children smartphones until the end of eighth grade, when most have finished middle school and are 13 or 14. Most parents want to give their children smartphones so they are not left out, he said. “And our message is very clear: We do want them to be left out. We want them to be left out of all the negative impacts of social media,” SooHoo said. “A communal problem requires a communal solution,” he added.