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By Michael Lyle
Nevada Current
Nevada could receive as much as $256 million from multibillion dollar multistate settlement over claims that Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is addictive and lacks child safety protections.
Under the settlement announced this week, the social media company agreed this week to pay 47 states and the District of Columbia up to $17.1 billion in penalties and pledged to implement changes to bolster protections for children using social media platforms.
Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford called the settlement a historic win and a “first step toward a future in which social media companies do not treat our children as disposable products.”
“This settlement will bring money into Nevada that will go directly toward educating and protecting our children, but, most importantly, it will implement changes that will drastically change how children can interact with Meta’s products,” Ford said in a statement Wednesday. “This settlement is strong, but it is not the end. I will continue to work to hold accountable the remaining social media companies who have unlawfully neglected to protect our children.”
Nevada is guaranteed to receive $178 million over the next 10 years though the amount could be larger, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office.
A lawsuit filed in 2023 claimed that Meta purposely designed its platforms to be addictive while knowingly exposing children to serious mental harms. The suit also claimed the company had intentionally misled the public about the safety of those platforms.
Ford, along with state officials across the country, echoed social media critics and legal observers who have suggested the suits against the platforms could have an impact similar to the lawsuits against Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Those suits resulted in huge monetary awards to states to fund public health programs, and also severely curtailed cigarette marketing and advertising.
In addition to the settlement, the company also has to to implement a series of safety protocols including “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., limits on school-time access for children, stronger safeguards against bullying, and eliminating push notifications on weekdays during the school year.