Meta has agreed to a landmark $18 billion settlement with 29 U.S. states concerning the safety of children on its platforms, Instagram and Facebook. As part of this settlement, announced on August 26, 2026, Meta will introduce a range of new controls aimed at restricting access and protecting underage users. These changes will automatically apply to users under 18 in participating states and territories and are planned to remain in place for a decade following judicial approval.

A key feature of the settlement is the introduction of a cumulative daily time limit of two hours for teenagers using Facebook and Instagram combined, which can only be overridden with parental consent. After reaching this limit, teens will be locked out of both apps. Additionally, Meta will provide an option for teens and their parents to set a non-algorithmic, chronological feed as the default, departing from the current automatic presentation of algorithmic content.

Other protections include a default “Night Mode” that blocks underage users from accessing the apps from midnight to 6 a.m., a ban on extreme makeup filters for minors, and muted notifications during school hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.), except for direct messages and safety alerts. Teens will also encounter usage prompts every 15 minutes and will need to take deliberate actions to enable autoplay, which is off by default. Like and reaction counts on posts will be hidden by default for those under 18, enhancing privacy and reducing social pressure.

Meta also strengthened efforts to identify teens accurately to apply these protections and reaffirmed its commitment to preventing minors from following or interacting with inappropriate accounts. The company has called on competitors TikTok and YouTube to join in adopting similar safeguards and has linked $5.3 billion of the settlement payout to these platforms implementing comparable measures. Meta highlighted that these unified standards are vital to prevent teens from shifting between apps to circumvent restrictions.