Wednesday, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, announced it had reached a settlement with the attorneys general from across the country (including California) in the social media addiction lawsuit playing out in an Oakland courtroom. As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to pay out aro und $18 billion to the states involved and to make changes to its apps. Based on the details of the settlement, the first of those changes are set to roll out in a matter of months, others will take more than a year. The changes for users under 18 include: Two-hour daily limits for use which teens will need parents’ permission to turn off Blocking Meta apps from midnight to 6 a.m. Stronger age verification measures Hiding the number of likes or reactions on posts Blocking teens from using what Meta calls “extreme makeup filters” “The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms,” said C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s Chief Legal Officer in a prepared video statement. The settlement states that within one year, Meta must adopt an “age assurance framework” which must be tested annually by an accredited third party. Within six months, Meta is expected to roll out efforts to detect users under the age of 13. Within four months, Meta is required to implement pauses after they have been using Meta apps continuously for more than 15 minutes and when their total daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes “to encourage intentional use.” Tech and legal experts say questions remain about how Meta will verify a user’s age without creating new privacy concerns. “The industry was not really very serious about it for a long time, 20 years,” said Ahmed Banafa, Professor of Engineering at San Jose State. Banafa said from a technical standpoint, he expects the age verification measures to be the most difficult parts of the agreement for Meta to fulfill. He explained the debate about how to do this has been “between privacy and protection.” Alyssa Goard has the full report in the video above. ...read more read less