Instagram’s parent company to pay Idaho up to $127M to settle social media addiction lawsuit

Idaho could receive more than $100 million under a settlement in a child social media addiction lawsuit by the tech giant Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram.

The settlement, announced Wednesday, was reached in the midst of a lawsuit trial that 47 states and D.C. are parties to, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office announced.

Idaho’s share of the $17.1 billion multi-state settlement with Meta is between $89.2 million and $127.7 million, the state’s legal agency said. The settlement payments are set to be doled out over the next decade, National Public Radio reported. 

“Protecting children in Idaho is one of the most critical responsibilities of my office,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a written statement. “Intentionally engineering any product to addict children is unconscionable. Meta’s design was a cynical attempt to create a lifetime user, regardless of the psychological damage and harm our children were exposed to. When this trial began, I said we would hold Meta accountable and today I’ve kept that promise.”  

The settlement also requires Meta to implement several changes intended to protect children on Facebook and Instagram, such as:

• Limiting app use daily for up to two hours, and requiring mandatory pauses after long sessions. The changes must remain for five years.
• Blocks to children’s access to the apps at night between midnight and 6 a.m.
• Halting push notifications on weekdays, when children are in school
• Age verification for young users
• And other limits, such as better parental controls and limits on “social comparison features,” such as visible counts of likes on posts and beauty filters

In a statement obtained by NPR, Meta Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney called on other social media platforms, such as TikTok and YouTube, to follow “Meta’s lead.”