Attorney General Clark Announces Historic $92.7 Million Settlement With Meta

Attorney General Charity Clark today announced a historic settlement with the social media company Meta, resolving allegations that the company knowingly placed children at harm by designing Instagram to be addictive while knowing the resultant devastating mental health problems. Meta will pay Vermont $92,700,152 to resolve the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Clark and will implement sweeping safety reforms which will fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens.

The landmark settlement was negotiated as part of a multistate agreement resolving claims by 47 other states and D.C., American Samoa, N. Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, that Meta 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. The multistate agreement resolves the State of Vermont's separate case against Meta that was originally filed in 2023. Nationally, Meta will pay up to $17.1 billion -- with 70 percent, or $12.2 billion, guaranteed now - representing one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. The remaining 30 percent will come if the other major social media companies - namely, TikTok, YouTube, and Snap - enter into deals with the states that contain substantially similar monetary and injunctive relief to Meta's deal.

"Today's historic settlement delivers meaningful accountability and truly transformative changes to make social media safer for kids and teens," said Attorney General Clark. "The kids of Vermont are the future of this state. They deserve a childhood free from exploitation and manipulation by companies that put engagement and profit over their health and well-being."

In 2023, Attorney General Clark sued Meta in Chittenden Superior Court as part of a coordinated effort with 42 states following a bipartisan, multistate investigation. Later that year, the Court granted Attorney General Clark's request to unseal the lawsuit, making public details of Meta's conduct that had previously been confidential.

In 2024, Meta attempted to have Attorney General Clark's lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the State of Vermont lacked personal jurisdiction, or legal authority, over the California-based company. The Attorney General's Office prevailed, and Vermont's state courts rejected Meta's arguments. Meta then tried to appeal the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court which denied the request in May, allowing the Vermont Supreme Court's decision to stand. The U.S. Supreme Court's denial affirmed that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids, and provides valuable precedent for other states fighting to keep their own cases against Meta in state court.

The settlement announced today is still pending court approval, but once entered, it requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:

• 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 remain in effect for five years.

• "Nighttime blocks" restricting children's app access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. and disabling push notifications from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 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.

These are groundbreaking changes to social media leaders Instagram and Facebook and more significant and comprehensive injunctive measures than previously ordered by any court.

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, 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.

Contact: Haley Sommer, Senior Advisor to the Attorney General, 802-828-3171