Kevin Shaw

Meta will enforce a two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook for children as part of a record $17.1B settlement with 29 states over social media addiction claims: • The “Productive Pauses” for children include mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling • “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 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 effectiveness of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states variety.com/2026/digital/new…