Meta pledges to overhaul kids’ safety protections, pay $17 billion to settle social media case
A multibillion-dollar settlement with attorneys general from nearly every U.S. state and territory will mean new privacy and safety protections in Meta products.
In a bellwether case for U.S. privacy and kids’ online safety rules, social media giant Meta agreed Monday to pay $17 billion and implement a series of landmark reforms, settling accusations that it knew and hid findings that its Facebook and Instagram apps are addictive.
The settlement, agreed to just days into a civil trial, requires the tech giant to drastically overhaul its approach to how kids use its service. The plaintiffs included nearly every U.S. state and territory.
The lawsuit also alleged Meta flouted the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), collecting data from kids 12 and under by relying on self-reported ages instead of facial recognition or other more rigorous age verification tools.
Source: https://therecord.media/meta-settlement-children-online-safety-social-media
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