The Session: The META Settlement META settlement-up to $17.1 billion to 29 states, including Ohio, alleging META’s social media policies contributed to depression and other mental health issues in young people. META is accused of knowing about the addictive issues, but doing nothing about it, and hiding the information from the public. They are also accused of breaking state consumer protection laws and violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data about children under the age of 13. Even though kids under 13 aren’t supposed to be allowed on the platforms. More time on-line is directly related to depression, body image issues, and susceptibility to addiction. From Fox News: Settlement includes default 2-hour combined daily time limit for Facebook and Instagram users under 18. Time spent scrolling on either app counts toward the total. In addition, Meta says it will count usage across multiple accounts when it detects that one teen operates more than one account. Direct messaging, time spent in settings and qualifying long-form audio or video are excluded from the two-hour limit. Under the agreement, qualifying long-form content generally means audio or video that lasts at least 22 minutes and has not been artificially extended. A teen can only turn off the two-hour limit with a parent's permission. That creates a much firmer stopping point than another reminder that can be dismissed. Night Mode will block most Facebook and Instagram activity from midnight to 6 a.m. During that window, teens will no longer be able to view or post to areas such as Feed, Stories, Explore or Reels. Direct messaging will remain available. That exception lets teens continue communicating with friends and family. For families dealing with late-night scrolling, this could create a clearer boundary without requiring someone to change the setting every evening. Meta will also disable push notifications by default from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., except for urgent account security or platform integrity alerts. Parents using supervision can change that setting. School Mode focuses on daytime distractions. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday between Aug. 15 and June 15, Meta will mute most push notifications by default. However, teens will still be able to receive direct messages. Meta will also allow account security and safety alerts during those hours. The idea is simple. A school day should come with fewer reasons to keep checking Instagram or Facebook. Meta will also add more frequent reminders. Teens will receive a prompt after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook or Instagram. In addition, Meta will send prompts when total daily use reaches 60 minutes and again at 90 minutes. The settlement requires these prompts and pauses to be implemented within four months of the agreement's effective date. Those alerts arrive before a teen reaches the two-hour limit. As a result, the hard cap becomes the final boundary rather than the first warning. The agreement also changes parts of the viewing experience. Teens will be able to choose a non-personalized feed as their default. That feed will avoid Meta's recommendation systems when deciding what to show next. Meta will hide like and reaction totals by default for teen accounts. That applies to a teen's own posts as well as content posted by other people. The company is also expanding its restrictions on appearance filters. Meta already blocks teens from using cosmetic surgery filters. Under the agreement, teens will also lose access to what Meta calls extreme makeup filters. These changes target parts of the social media experience that can keep attention focused on appearance and social feedback. Age verification sits at the center of these protections. A teen limit only works if the platform correctly identifies the person behind the account. Meta says it will invest in stronger technology to find accounts that may belong to children under 13. The company also plans to improve systems that identify users ages 13 to 17 who enter an adult birthday. Once Meta identifies those accounts, it can place them into experiences designed for teens. Meta also plans to expand its parental supervision tools. For example, parents will receive a notification when a teen links a secondary account. The company also plans alerts involving interactions with accounts it considers potentially suspicious. In addition, parents will get periodic updates about their teen's usage and attempts to change protective settings. Those alerts could make it easier to catch changes without constantly checking a teen's account. META now wants other companies to do the same, including TikTok and YouTube. Participation from Snap, TikTok and YouTube could trigger stricter Meta limits under the agreement's broader industry-adoption framework. The agreement requires most of its provisions to remain in place for 10 years. However, Meta's Time Limit and Night Mode commitments initially run for five years. If industry peers join the agreement, those commitments extend to 10 years. The defaults would get tougher too. The agreement also creates outside oversight. An independent auditor will test Meta's compliance and report to participating states. Those reviews will happen annually for five years. Meta says the agreement will also establish an independent social media research foundation. The company says it will provide consented user data to the foundation for research into teens well-being. That outside review could help show whether the protections work once they reach millions of accounts. Fox called this the big tobacco moment for big tech. When we looked back and saw the results of big tobacco’s marketing to kids come back to haunt them decades later. US News & World Report said, “Governments around the world are trying to curb children's access to harmful online content, including a world-first ban in Australia late last year on social media for children under 16. Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an email to Reuters that social media companies "have the tools at their disposal to protect young people from their addictive features but have chosen not to use them". Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion over a decade and limit how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram under an agreement with nearly all U.S. states to resolve claims that it designed those platforms to addict children. Meta denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. The deal brings sweeping changes to Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms in the United States, including imposing a default two-hour limit on its apps for users under the age of 18. In South Korea, the media regulator said some of Meta's measures should be applied to young users worldwide, rather than just in specific markets. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said, “the government needed to review its potential impact for Mexico.” A devotional podcast for parents on the go! Encouragement, Scripture, & prayer in just 7 minutes. Join the journey! To reach Tom Russell, please call 419-709-8447, email Tom at tom.hccm@gmail.com, or visit his website at https://www.heritagechristiancounselingofmansfield.com Click this link to purchase Tom’s devotional, “Seeing Yourself Through the Eyes of God: A Weekly Devotional for Improving Self-Esteem.”
