Meta agrees to limit teens’ time on Facebook and Instagram and calls on TikTok and YouTube to match

Meta announced today that it will implement major changes to Facebook and Instagram’s child safety features as part of a settlement agreement with nearly every U.S. state.

Here’s what will change for users under 18 on Instagram and Facebook if the deal is approved.

• Time limit – Teenagers will have a two-hour daily time limit on Facebook and Instagram, although this can be overridden by a parent. The two hour total includes both applications.
• Night mode – Users will no longer be able to post and view content between midnight and 6 a.m.
• School fashion – Notifications are disabled between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
• Prompts – Apps will send prompts every 15 minutes of continuous screen time. Messages will also be displayed when daily usage reaches 60 minutes and 90 minutes.
• Power control – Teens can choose a non-algorithmic feed that does not include personalization through Instagram and Facebook recommendation systems. Parents may require this setting.
• Autoplay control – Teenagers will be able to turn off autoplay. Parents may require this setting.
• I like hidden – Teenagers will not see likes and reactions on a post by default.
• Filters – Cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters will not be accessible to teenagers.
• Age insurance – ‌Meta‌ plans to strengthen the tools it uses to detect accounts belonging to users under the age of 13, as well as accounts used by teens aged 13 to 17, to ensure accounts offer “experiences designed for teens.”
• Parental Control – ‌Meta‌ will add new controls for parents, warning them if a teen links a second account or interacts with suspicious accounts. Parents will also receive periodic updates on teen usage.
• Direct messages – Direct messages are exempt from time limit, night mode and school mode.

‌Meta‌ will also pay about $18 billion to states to fund youth online safety initiatives, which is well below its net income of $60.5 billion for 2025. The payment will be spread out over a 10-year period and ‌Meta‌ will withhold $5.3 billion unless TikTok and YouTube implement similar measures. If they do, ‌Meta‌ says it will reduce daily usage limits from two cumulative hours for both apps to one hour for each app and extend ‌Night Mode‌ to run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

‌Meta‌ wants YouTube and TikTok to add a one-hour daily limit, night mode and age insurance measures, as well as pay $5.3 billion each to match the $5.3 billion retained by ‌Meta‌. ‌Meta‌ published an open letter calling on TikTok and YouTube to implement the same measures. Teens with restrictions on Instagram and Facebook might simply move to TikTok and YouTube, and ‌Meta‌ probably doesn’t want to be the only company to lose revenue.

‌Meta‌ was the subject of a federal lawsuit over the lawsuit, and if that had continued, it could have been forced to pay more. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were seeking civil penalties approaching $200 billion, according to Reuters. The settlement came before ‌Meta‌ CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified, but Florida refused to settle and will continue litigation. New Mexico was also not involved as it won its own case against ‌Meta‌ earlier this year.