Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday announced a landmark multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. to implement sweeping child-safety reforms on Instagram and Facebook.

In addition to the set of safety features, Michigan will receive at least $171 million under the agreement.

The settlement resolves claims by 47 states and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that the company designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things.

This settlement is said to be a monumental victory for the protection of America’s children and will fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens.

“For too many years, social media platforms have traded our children’s mental health for engagement on their apps,” said Attorney General Nessel. “This historic settlement holds Meta accountable and puts critical, first-of-its-kind safeguards in place to protect Michigan kids, including daily screen breaks, nighttime access blocks, and the removal of harmful features like public like counts. Now, the responsibility to protect our youth cannot end here. It is my hope that this is a turning point for the entire social media industry to prioritize the safety and well-being of children over their bottom line.”

Meta said in a blog post that it was “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”

“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”

The company urged its rivals to adopt similar safety measures.

The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:

• Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits will remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.

• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.

• Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.

• Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.

• Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.

• Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.

• Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.

Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.

The coalition, according to a release, recognizes these are groundbreaking changes to Instagram and Facebook and more significant and comprehensive than previously ordered by any court. The settlement also represents a down payment toward an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.

The settlement also resolves the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.

The settlement is attached below.

Photo courtesy of Associated Press.