The process that should have put the model with which Meta built Instagram and Facebook under scrutiny for weeks could end much sooner than expected, but leaving behind consequences destined to concretely change the functioning of the two social networks for millions of teenagers. In the middle of the second week of the federal proceedings underway in Oakland, California, Meta and the American states that brought it to court have in fact reached an agreement that can reach up to 17 billion dollars over ten years and which, above all, imposes on the company a series of new protections for minor users. The settlement still must be approved by federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and does not represent an admission of liability by the company.
The turning point comes a few hours after a particularly delicate deposition for Meta. Adam Mosseri, at the helm of Instagram since 2018, took the stand and had to answer for the measures adopted over the years to limit the excessive use of the platform by teenagers. At the center of the prosecutors’ questions was Take a Break, the function introduced in 2021 to invite users to stop browsing after a certain period spent on the app.
And this is where the process highlighted a significant distance between the formal existence of a security tool and its real use. Before restrictions became automatic for teen accounts, only a very small percentage of teens chose to voluntarily activate Take a Break. According to the data that emerged in the classroom, at one stage membership would have been around 1.8 percent. Mosseri acknowledged that usage had remained in the low single-digit percentages and explained that the majority of teens didn’t seem interested in the feature.
The data takes on particular importance because, at the time of the launch in 2021, Instagram had communicated above all another percentage: over 90 percent of the teenagers who had already activated Take a Break during the tests had decided to keep it. A correct number, but therefore referring not to the entire population of young users but to the small group who had chosen to use the function. When questioned about the failure to publish data relating to low overall membership, Mosseri argued that Meta does not make every single statistic public and rejected the accusation of trying to hide negative information.
The trial on child dependency
The issue goes far beyond a single Instagram setting. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were conducting the federal trial as part of a broader action brought by US states, accusing Meta of having designed features of Facebook and Instagram capable of encouraging compulsive use by children and adolescents and, at the same time, of having publicly downplayed some of the risks known internally.
The disputes include mechanisms that are now central to the experience of social networks, from algorithmic recommendation to continuous scrolling, up to notifications and tools capable of fueling social comparison. The States also allege that Meta collected and used data belonging to children under 13 in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the American federal law that regulates the online privacy of children. Meta has always rejected the accusation of having deliberately built its products to create addiction and continues to deny any responsibility. (oag.ca.gov)
The case had become one of the most important judicial tests ever faced by Silicon Valley on the relationship between platform design and the health of minors. In the previous days, former Meta employees had also been heard, including Arturo Béjar, who accused the company of having prioritized growth and engagement despite internal reports on the risks faced by younger users.
Two hours a day and stop during the night
The agreement filed on August 26, however, goes much deeper than the declarations of principle on security and establishes precise rules on the functioning of platforms for teenagers.
In a first phase, the accounts of minors will have to have as a default an overall limit of two hours per day on the Meta platforms affected by the agreement. Once the limit is reached, several features will no longer be available until midnight, unless changes are authorized by the parent. The text also provides for a default night block between midnight and 6 am, while push notifications must be deactivated between 10 pm and 7 am, except for some communications related to account security.
An even more restrictive second phase is also envisaged, but linked to the adoption of similar measures by the main competitors in the sector indicated in the agreement, including Snap, TikTok and YouTube. In that case the limit would become 60 minutes per day for each Meta platform and in any case no more than 120 minutes in total, while the night block could extend from 10pm to 7am.
Many notifications will also be turned off by default during school hours and parents will be able to apply additional restrictions. It is a relevant step because it shifts the principle of protection: the teenager will no longer have to voluntarily search for and activate the tools to reduce use, as happened with Take a Break, but the parent’s intervention will be necessary to make some settings less restrictive.
Away with the number of likes and filters that simulate cosmetic surgery
The agreement also affects the way Instagram constructs the social experience of teenagers. For minor users, the number of likes and reactions must be hidden by default and the setting cannot be made less restrictive without a parent’s approval.
Meta will also have to prevent adolescents from using what the document defines as Cosmetic Procedure Filters, i.e. digital filters or augmented reality effects that modify the face by simulating results obtainable through cosmetic surgery or extreme transformations. However, clearly fantastic, caricatural effects or those obtainable with normal make-up remain excluded from the ban.
Within four months of the agreement coming into force, teenagers must then have the easily accessible option to choose a non-personalized feed as their home screen, made up of the contents of the accounts they follow and ordered chronologically, rather than relying solely on the algorithm’s recommendations. Instagram and Facebook will have to periodically remind young users of the existence of this possibility.
An independent auditor with access to the data necessary to evaluate compliance with the agreement will also monitor the application of the measures. The measure, once approved, will last ten years.
An agreement that can change the entire sector
The economic component is enormous: the maximum value of the agreement can reach 17 billion dollars, distributed over ten years, even if part of the payments is linked to conditions set out in the agreement. At least a portion of the money will go towards initiatives such as youth mental health programs, crisis intervention services, digital wellbeing education and activities for children and adolescents.
For Meta, however, the decisive point could even be another. Chief Legal Officer CJ Mahoney defined the new framework as a model that will allow parents to more easily manage their children’s access to platforms, underlining however that for it to really work it will be necessary for other large social networks to also adopt similar standards. (knpr.org)
It is precisely this dimension that makes the Oakland case different from the many controversies in recent years about online security. For the first time, a controversy over the alleged ability of social media to compulsively detain adolescents does not just produce new voluntary settings or corporate promises, but a system of limits, controls and checks inserted into a judicial agreement. And Mosseri’s deposition ended up bringing into focus the problem that runs through the entire affair: protection may exist technically, but if almost no one activates it, its effectiveness remains above all theoretical.
It is precisely this paradigm that the new agreement seeks to overturn, transforming many of the protections from optional to default and putting the possibility of relaxing them back in the hands of parents. For Instagram and Facebook it could be a structural change; for the rest of the social networking industry, the precedent no one wanted to see coming.
