Illinois will get nearly $768 million from Meta settlement in social media addiction lawsuit
Illinois will receive nearly $768 million from a landmark Meta lawsuit settlement over social media addiction, Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Wednesday.
The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by 47 states alleging the company designed its platforms with addictive features, exposed young users to serious mental health harms, and seriously misled the public about the safety of its platforms.
The suit also alleged Meta violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA( by collecting and using personal data from people under 13 years old.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2023.
Raoul said under the settlement, beyond the $768 million share Illinois gets Meta is also required to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, from daily time limits to more robust age verification and stronger content controls.
Raoul also filed a lawsuit against TikTok in 2024 for addictive features, harmful business practices targeting children and alleging the company also deceived the public about the platform's dangers. That lawsuit has not yet been settled nor gone to trial, though TikTok has recently settled several lawsuits filed by individual users for addictive features, and the Justice Department recently announced a $400 million settlement for lawsuits regarding children's privacy under COPPA.
Raoul also recently joined other states in suing xAI, which owns social media platform X and its AI chatbot Grok, over AI-generated nonconsensual sexual images and child sex abuse material.
Raoul did not say how the settlement money will be used in Illinois. Gov. JB Pritzker has not yet commented publicly on the settlement.
What safety features is Meta required to implement?
Along with monetary compensation, Raoul outlined a series of safety measures Meta will be required to implement on Facebook and Instagram as part of this settlement.
Both platforms must implement daily time limits and "productive pauses" for children. That means a combined two-hour time limit for both Instagram and Facebook, with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use, as well as at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. The time limits will remain in effect for five years, but if Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable terms the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years, according to Raoul's news release.
Meta must also put in place several time-of-day-based use limitations: a nighttime block restricting access to feeds and turning off notifications between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and school day limits on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year, which will block push notifications from both Facebook and Instagram.
Meta must also implement robust age assurance measures to verify users' ages; stronger more user-friendly parental controls; and age-appropriate content controls that include stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders and content related to suicide and self-harm. Meta is also now required to turn off teens' access to beauty filters for pictures that change users' skin tones or mimic cosmetic surgery.
Finally, Meta must turn off or limit social comparison features, including visible "likes" for teen users.
Raoul said an independent auditor will evaluate the implementation of these injunctive relief terms for the next five years.
