Mississippi is set to receive nearly $189 million over 10 years as part of a $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms that will require major changes to how children use Facebook and Instagram, according to Attorney General Lynn Fitch.
Fitch announced the settlement Wednesday, calling it one of the largest state consumer protection settlements outside the Big Tobacco cases of the 1990s and the largest involving a major technology company.
Mississippi is expected to receive $188,977,258 over 10 years. That amount could increase to about $270.4 million if other major platforms agree to comparable child-safety changes.
“Big Tech has been conducting a social experiment on our children’s developing brains by making platforms that were purposefully addictive and preyed on children’s greatest vulnerabilities,” Fitch said.
Under the agreement, Meta must implement a series of new protections for children using Instagram and Facebook.
Those changes include a combined two-hour daily time limit across the two platforms, along with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes.
The settlement also requires nighttime access restrictions from midnight to 6 a.m. and disables nighttime notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
During the school year, children will not receive push notifications on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. between Aug. 15 and June 15.
Meta will also be required to strengthen age-verification measures, parental controls and content restrictions involving bullying, eating disorders, suicide and self-harm.
The settlement also calls for limits on features tied to social comparison, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts.
An independent auditor and the participating states will regularly review both the implementation and effectiveness of the new protections.
If Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube later adopt comparable terms, Meta has agreed to reduce its daily time limit for children to 60 minutes and expand the nighttime block to 10 p.m. through 7 a.m.
The agreement resolves claims brought by 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The states alleged Meta designed Instagram with addictive features, exposed young users to mental health risks and misled the public about the safety of its platforms.
Fitch filed Mississippi’s lawsuit against Meta in October 2023 as part of a broader nationwide effort involving attorneys general across the country.
A separate Mississippi lawsuit against TikTok, filed in October 2024, remains ongoing.
Fitch said the Meta agreement could set a broader standard for how social media companies protect young users.
“Meta is setting a new standard here for the way children engage with social media, and we will seek to hold other platforms accountable to it,” she said.
