{"id":3491675,"date":"2026-08-26T13:43:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/26\/meta-settles-for-18-billion-in-lawsuit-brought-by-29-states-over-social-media-harms-to-children\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T13:43:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:43:01","slug":"meta-settles-for-18-billion-in-lawsuit-brought-by-29-states-over-social-media-harms-to-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/26\/meta-settles-for-18-billion-in-lawsuit-brought-by-29-states-over-social-media-harms-to-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta settles for $18 billion in lawsuit brought by 29 states over social media harms to children"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/meta-settles-for-18-billion-in-lawsuit-brought-by-29-states-over-social-media-harms-to-children.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims from 29 U.S. states over children\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lawsuit alleged that the social media giant knowingly designed platforms like Instagram and Facebook to addict children, despite knowing about the harms the platforms could pose to young users. The states also claimed that Meta knowingly collected data from children without parental knowledge, which violated the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By settling, Meta is not admitting that it\u2019s guilty of these claims, but it shows the company\u2019s reluctance to move forward with a jury trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta is framing its settlement as a call to action for YouTube and TikTok to adopt a set of protections for teens and controls for parents, illustrated in a blog post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEnsuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,\u201d Meta wrote. \u201cWe want to get this right for parents and teens, and that\u2019s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/meta-settles-for-18-billion-in-lawsuit-brought-by-29-states-over-social-media-harms-to-children.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims from 29 U.S. states over children\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lawsuit alleged that the social media giant knowingly designed platforms like Instagram and Facebook to addict children, despite knowing about the harms the platforms could pose to young users. The states also claimed that Meta knowingly collected data from children without parental knowledge, which violated the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By settling, Meta is not admitting that it\u2019s guilty of these claims, but it shows the company\u2019s reluctance to move forward with a jury trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta is framing its settlement as a call to action for YouTube and TikTok to adopt a set of protections for teens and controls for parents, illustrated in a blog post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEnsuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,\u201d Meta wrote. \u201cWe want to get this right for parents and teens, and that\u2019s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3491676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3491675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3491676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}