By Misha Nesbitt
In August 2026, Meta agreed to pay $17.1 billion to settle claims that it deliberately designed Instagram to be addictive for teens and ignored the resulting harms. Alongside this record payout, Meta agreed to impose sweeping new default settings for teen accounts. While these safeguards represent a step in the right direction, social media settings cannot substitute for direct parental oversight. Parents should retain the primary responsibility for protecting their children from social media addiction—and they are far better positioned to succeed because they can restrict physical access to devices. Rather than treating this landmark settlement as a panacea, parents should see it as a wake-up call.
The Cover-Up
For years, Meta knew that its social media products (Instagram and Facebook) were harmful to young users, particularly girls.[1] One of the first people to bring this to light was Arturo Béjar, a former Meta employee on Instagram’s “well-being” team. In 2023, Béjar testified about his experience at Instagram before the Senate’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.[2] According to Béjar’s statements, Meta’s internal surveys of 13- to 15-year-old Instagram users revealed the following:[3]
- 21.8% of survey respondents had been bullied on Instagram in the past seven days.
- 39.4% had experienced “negative comparison” in the past seven days (i.e., they felt inferior after comparing themselves to other Instagram users).
- 24.4% had received unwanted sexual advances on Instagram in the past seven days. This number was later revised to 13%, which Béjar characterized as “likely the largest-scale sexual harassment of teens to have ever happened.”
Despite knowing these statistics, senior Instagram management “was externally reporting different data that grossly understated the frequency of harm experienced by users.”[4] Béjar, whose own underage daughter had been the victim of unwanted sexual advances on Instagram, emailed Mark Zuckerberg and other senior leadership on October 5, 2021, detailing the above-mentioned findings.[5] Meta took no action to remedy these harms. Zuckerberg reportedly did not even reply to the email.[6]
The Multistate Consumer-Protection Campaign
These harms prompted a coordinated, bipartisan consumer-protection campaign against Meta, led by the attorneys general of Tennessee, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts. Tennessee filed a lawsuit alleging that Meta violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act by engaging in “unfair and deceptive conduct”[7] by misleading the public about the harms associated with underage Instagram use: increased rates of depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, and lack of sleep.[8] The lawsuit also alleged that Meta “studied teens’ brain development to help drive product changes that would make the platform more addictive”—knowing that teens “have a much harder time stopping [using Instagram] even though they want to.”[9] Every state in the country took similar actions to hold Meta accountable for the harms its products caused.
The first major victory in the states’ campaign against Meta came in March of 2026. A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay a $375 million civil penalty for violating New Mexico’s consumer protection laws—the maximum penalty available under the law.[10] A subsequent bench trial increased the total penalty to $942 million and imposed court-enforced reforms on Facebook and Instagram.[11]
Tennessee’s state court trial began on July 20, 2026, and was expected to last seven weeks.[12] At the same time, a federal lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of California, Kentucky, Colorado, and New Jersey proceeded in a federal court in Oakland, California.[13] Arturo Béjar testified at the federal trial, arguing that Meta prioritized profits over safety when it designed Instagram.[14]
The Landmark Settlement
Faced with mounting legal bills and immense potential liability, Meta did what any reasonable business would do and settled. On August 26, 2026, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced that Meta had settled (almost) every state’s claim against it by agreeing to pay $17.1 billion for the establishment of mental health initiatives, digital safety enforcement, and education funds.[15] Meta also agreed to impose restrictions on teen social media users, including:[16]
- limiting teens to a maximum of two hours per day on Facebook and Instagram;
- imposing a default “Night Access Mode” which bars access to social media feeds between midnight and 6:00 a.m.;
- disabling push notifications at night and during school hours;
- interrupting “doom-scrolling” with prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous scrolling, and at 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative scrolling;
- hiding public like counts;
- disabling cosmetically-enhancing augmented reality filters;
- mandating non-personalized, chronological feeds; and
- prohibiting the modification of any of these settings without affirmative parental consent.
What Comes Next?
On paper, these safeguards appear robust. By setting curfews, interrupting infinite scroll, disabling filters and like counts, and requiring parents to approve any changes to the default settings, the settlement represents a meaningful attempt to combat the harm associated with teen social media addiction.
However, these measures will likely be insufficient to protect the teens who are most addicted to, and therefore most harmed by, Meta’s social media products. Teens will find ways to circumvent the restrictions, whether by creating fake accounts to bypass age verification, finding loopholes in the settings, using a friend or family member’s account, or simply turning to social media platforms that don’t have age restrictions. This can be seen in Australia, which banned all social media for under-16s in December 2025.[17] Australian teens have already figured out how to maintain access to social media by using virtual private networks (VPNs) and by tricking age verification services.[18]
There is only one ultimate solution to teen social media addiction: parents must take responsibility for raising their children. They must institute age-appropriate technology rules and should closely monitor their children’s social media use. Parents cannot delegate these responsibilities to the government or to corporations like Meta. In the words of the Supreme Court: “It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.”[19] While Instagram can send a push notification to a 14-year-old telling him how long he’s been scrolling, only a parent can physically take his device away after watching him scroll for hours. Parents can enforce curfews, establish phone-free zones, and have candid conversations with their teens about screen time.
Meta’s new safeguards risk lulling parents into a false sense of security. They might be tempted to assume that Meta’s teen account settings will be sufficient to protect their child from social media addiction. This would be a mistake. Parents know what is best for their children, and they bear the ultimate responsibility for protecting them. Meta’s new restrictions for teen users are a step in the right direction, but parents should treat these changes as a wake-up call to how serious teen social media addiction is, rather than a definitive solution to the problem.
[1] See Georgia Wells, Jeff Horwitz & Deepa Seetharaman, Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show, Wall St. J. (Sep. 14, 2021), https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[2] Social Media and the Teen Mental Health Crisis: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Privacy, Tech., & the L. of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/social-media-and-the-teen-mental-health-crisis (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] See Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977, Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-18-104 (defining “unfair or deceptive acts or practice”).
[8] Press Release, Office of the Tenn. Att’y Gen., Tennessee Attorney General Files Unredacted Complaint Against Meta Platforms, Inc. (Jan 20, 2024), https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/news/2024/1/10/pr23-03.html (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[9] Id. (emphasis added).
[10] Press Release, Office of the N.M. Dept. of Just., New Mexico Department of Justice Wins Landmark Verdict Against Meta (Mar. 24, 2026), https://nmdoj.gov/press-release/new-mexico-department-of-justice-wins-landmark-verdict-against-meta/ (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[11] Press Release, Office of the N.M. Dept. of Just., Court Orders Meta to Pay $942 Million and Overhaul Protections for Children on Facebook and Instagram in Landmark New Mexico Ruling (Aug. 7, 2026), https://nmdoj.gov/press-release/court-orders-meta-to-pay-942-million-and-overhaul-protections-for-children-on-facebook-and-instagram-in-landmark-new-mexico-ruling/ (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[12] Leah Milova, Tennessee takes Meta to trial over Instagram addiction allegations, Jurist News (Jul. 21, 2026), https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/07/tennessee-takes-meta-to-trial-over-instagram-addiction-allegations/#.
[13] Meghan Bobrowsky, Pivotal Child Safety Trial That Could Change Instagram Starts in California, Wall St. J. (Aug. 18, 2026), https://www.wsj.com/tech/massive-child-safety-trial-against-meta-starts-in-federal-court-130e3739 (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[14] Barbara Orutay, Former Meta engingeer says Instagram took a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach on kids under 13 (Aug. 19, 2026), https://abc7chicago.com/post/former-meta-engineer-says-instagram-took-dont-ask-tell-approach-kids-13-lawsuit-testimony/19705836/ (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[15] See Press Release, Office of the Tenn. Att’y Gen., Attorney General Skrmetti Announces Largest Big Tech Settlement in History (Aug. 26, 2026), https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/news/2026/8/26/pr26-33.html (on file with the Tennessee Law Review). Texas negotiated a separate settlement with Meta for $1 billion, and Florida elected to continue its litigation. Anna Claire Vollers, Meta to pay 47 states up to $17.1 Billion in landmark child safety settlement, Stateline (Aug. 26, 2026), https://stateline.org/2026/08/26/meta-to-pay-47-states-up-to-17-1-billion-in-landmark-child-safety-settlement/ (on file with the Tennessee Law Review); Christie Zizo, ‘We’ll see them at trial:’ Florida rejects Meta billion-dollar settlement over teen social media addiction, News6 (Aug. 26, 2026), https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/08/26/well-see-them-at-trial-florida-rejects-meta-billion-dollar-settlement-over-teen-social-media-addiction/ (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[16] Press Release, Office of the Tenn. Att’y Gen., Attorney General Skrmetti Announces Largest Big Tech Settlement in History (Aug. 26, 2026), https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/news/2026/8/26/pr26-33.html (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[17] See Daniel Zuidijk & Mia Dawkins, Australian Teens Are Sneaking Onto Social Media Despite Ban, Bloomberg (Mar. 11, 2026), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/australian-teens-are-sneaking-onto-social-media-despite-ban (on file with the Tennessee Law Review).
[18] Id.
[19] Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); see also Pierce v. Soc’y of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925) (“The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (emphasis added)); Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”).
