Nebraska to receive up to $201 million from Meta landmark settlement

LINCOLN — Nebraska will receive up to $201 million from the Meta landmark settlement, Attorney General Mike Hilgers said Wednesday morning.

Nebraska’s sum is part of a larger settlement of $17.1 billion with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories over claims that the company knowingly designed and deployed harmful features on its social media platforms intended to addict children and teens. As part of the settlement, Meta has agreed to implement changes to its platforms for younger users.  

Hilger called Wednesday’s announcement of the settlement “one of the biggest days” in the history of the Nebraska AG office. 

“We have achieved some of the most important relief … both for the state to help abate the impact of social media on kids, but also to empower parents to help protect kids,” he said during his press conference. 

The settlement ends the trial of the case that began in California last week, which had been expected to last six to eight weeks.

The changes for younger users of Facebook and Instagram will include hard-cap daily time limits and “productive pauses” — 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.

Other changes include:

• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m.
• Limited school-time access and no push notifications for children on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 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. 

Most of these changes will be effective for a decade. 

Hilgers said the funds will go to the state’s consumer protection cash fund; he added that it will be up to the Legislature and the governor how the money will be used. Meta, in a statement, said the fund “can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities.”

Nebraska will also get $5.1 million from Meta for its “sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.” 

Cambridge Analytica, which had ties to former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, purchased Facebook data on tens of millions of Americans without their knowledge to target U.S. voters during the 2016 Trump campaign, according to AP.

In the same statement, Meta called on YouTube and TikTok to implement similar changes on their platforms. 

“For meaningful progress to happen, we urge TikTok and YouTube to join us and state attorneys general in adopting this new standard, to ensure teens use social media in a healthy and responsible way,” part of the statement reads.