One phrase I hear over and over again from parents when it comes to raising kids in a digital world: “This is exhausting.”
Exhaustion makes sense. In the absence of meaningful legislation or tech accountability, we’ve outsourced the burden of online safety and protection almost entirely to parents and kids. Tech companies have consistently prioritized profit over safety-by-design, and families have been left to pick up the pieces.
This week marks a significant change to that story. Yesterday, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over ten years to settle claims that its platforms endangered children. The settlement marks a historic and much-needed shift in responsibility. We will know a lot more in the days and weeks to come, but it’s worth pausing to recognize this moment.
What you need to know and where we go from here
Accountability matters. Business as usual has been disrupted for Meta. Thanks to our states’ attorneys general and countless other advocates and organizations for their tireless efforts to hold Meta accountable for exploitative design on Facebook and Instagram. This settlement represents a huge step forward and many of the changes proposed are long overdue.
Targeting design is a win. Perhaps the most important part of the settlement is that it doesn’t just offer downstream band-aids and payouts, it targets (some) of the design features in Meta’s products. Design changes include things like bans on appearance-altering filters, limiting night access and notifications, daily usage limits, hidden engagement metrics, and autoplay controls. There is still significant room for improvement here, but it is a start.
A safer experience hinges on age assurance. Meta has agreed to improve age assurance measures, though it is unclear exactly how effective this will be. Age estimation has been a real challenge in Australia’s age restriction policy, partly because of inconsistent enforcement by platforms. Meta has already spent over a year trying to push age verification onto Apple and Google’s app stores rather than absorb it directly. Many features of a safer experience hinge on getting this piece of the puzzle right without compromising user privacy.
Potential for broader industry change. I see Meta’s recent letter positioning itself as an industry leader in online safety as disingenuous, given that these (very simple) changes are only coming after mountains of lawsuits. The full settlement does depend on whether rivals like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt similar measures and agree to pay the same in the coming years, so broader industry change is possible.
Follow the money toward youth. The Meta settlement consists of $12.1 billion over ten years in payments that can be used by states to fund programs and services that remedy harms and promote youth well-being and healthy development. This is a tiny fraction of Meta’s profits but also represents real dollars for real programs. Organizations like FundIRL have been working hard to ensure that settlement money translates into meaningful investments in youth.
Legislation over lawsuits. Let’s keep working toward a world where all companies (not just those facing litigation) have to exercise a duty of care before they bring a product to market. This is especially important as AI tools flood the marketplace with few guardrails in place.
Parents are still overburdened. Instead of making safety by design the default for all users, many of the changes are still “opt in” settings through parental controls. Unsurprisingly, the algorithmic feed is still on by default. We know that parents are already overwhelmed by the maze of parental controls and that opt-in settings will leave many youth without commonsense protections. As of right now, parents and teens outside the United States (and in Florida and New Mexico who declined to join) will also not be covered by these commitments.
What is staying the same, what is (hopefully) different.
This is a big week. The settlement is not proof that social media is the sole cause of all youth mental health problems or that it is universally addictive for every single teen who touches it. It doesn’t have to be. It’s an indictment of design choices that Meta’s own internal research flagged as harmful, yet the company kept shipping anyway.
Some things are staying the same: Open, curious, and nonjudgmental questions will continue to help us discern whether our kids’ digital activities are helping or hurting, no matter what platform they are on. Our kids will continue to rely on us to balance purposeful boundaries with opportunities to build digital agency, grow skills, and engage in shared decision-making. Young people need us to do more than protect them from harm. They also need us to help them build skills for digital thriving.
But as of this week, some things will also be different. Tech companies can no longer assume that exploitative design for teens is business as usual or that online harms can be brushed aside and ignored. Hopefully we will build on this settlement and enter an era of shared responsibility where child-centered design, co-design, and a duty of care are the norm. Hopefully we will grow investments in an ecosystem of developmental opportunities for youth that include high quality afterschool programming, accessible mental health and crisis supports, and robust and affordable third spaces. Hopefully we will tackle the barriers families face that make digital thriving out of reach.
Hopefully (dare we dream?) we will be less exhausted from shouldering the burden alone.
This will take a lot more than one historic settlement, but it’s well worth working toward. The relationship between social media and mental health for any individual teen is still complicated. But our public responsibility to create products that center children’s wellbeing? Crystal clear. Let’s keep going.