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26 August 2026 · 2 min read

National settlement with Meta omits protections New Mexico won at trial, state attorney general says

Meta agreed to pay up to 18 billion dollars over a decade and change how Facebook and Instagram work for under-18 users. New Mexico's attorney general says the deal lacks safeguards his state secured in court, including a ban on romantic and sexualised AI chatbot interactions with minors. Child safety groups welcomed the settlement but called it incomplete.

Meta reached a settlement this week with a bipartisan coalition of 51 state attorneys general, agreeing to pay up to 18 billion dollars over the next decade and to overhaul how Facebook and Instagram operate for anyone under 18. The lawsuit had accused the company of designing its platforms to be addictive to children. The deal is still subject to court approval.

According to Fortune, the settlement requires a default two-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block between midnight and 6 a.m., muted notifications during the school day, hidden like counts, a ban on cosmetic-surgery and extreme makeup filters, stronger age verification, and an independent auditor to check Meta's compliance for five years.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, whose office won the first jury verdict against Meta over child safety, said the national deal does not reach as far as what his state secured in court, including a direct ban on romantic and sexualised AI chatbot interactions with minors and stronger safeguards against adults targeting children in private messages. He nonetheless called the settlement historic and real progress.

Child safety advocates echoed the concern. Fairplay called the deal a watershed moment but said it does not turn off by default the recommendation algorithms that can connect children to predators, and criticised its focus on offering parents tools rather than restricting harmful features. The Center for Democracy and Technology warned that broad age assurance requirements carry risks to the privacy and free expression of all users.

  • Meta publicly called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same framework; neither responded to Fortune's requests for comment.
  • Observers noted the settlement is worth roughly 1 percent of Meta's market capitalisation, and questioned whether the penalty is large enough to change the company's conduct.
  • Several commentators tied the moment to the stalled Kids Online Safety Act in Congress.

The original reporting is by Catherina Gioino for Fortune.

Sources