Published on Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Attorney General Neronha today joined a coalition of 47 States and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands in announcing a landmark multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. of up to $17.1 billion – one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history. Under the settlement, Rhode Island will receive at least $49.4 and up to $64.5 million.
As part of the settlement, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. The agreement resolves the coalition’s claims 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.
“While there is still much work to be done, this agreement is a significant step forward safeguarding our children from the well-documented harms of social media use by young people,” said Attorney General Neronha. “Growing up in modern times presents a unique set of challenges, many of which are either attributable to or have been exacerbated by social media use and a lack of protection measures employed by the companies that host these platforms. But we can’t rest on our laurels. The ways in which our children engage with social media, and technology generally, are constantly changing, and as such, we must continue to adapt our approach to online safety.”
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 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 verify the age of young users more effectively;
- 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; and
- Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
Beginning in 2021, the coalition began investigating the social media industry for designing and promoting platforms to children and teens despite known harms. After a bipartisan, nationwide investigation found that Meta designed Instagram’s features to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, attorneys general across the country sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit. This settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. 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.
Joining Attorney General Neronha in this settlement are 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, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
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