Key points
- Meta (META) ran full-page ads August 27 in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times urging TikTok and YouTube to adopt its new teen limits.
- About $5.3 billion of the up to $18 billion settlement goes to the states only if the two rivals comply.
- Neither Alphabet (GOOGL) nor TikTok has responded. Both META and GOOGL traded higher Friday.
Meta Platforms ran full-page advertisements on Thursday in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times asking TikTok and YouTube to adopt the teen safety settings it agreed to this week. The ads reprint an open letter Meta published under the title "An Open Letter to TikTok and YouTube to Join Us in Supporting Teens."
"We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone," the letter says. It describes the settings as a standard Meta is choosing to champion. It doesn't mention that Meta adopted them as a condition of a legal settlement. Platformer's Casey Newton wrote that the campaign showed "characteristic gall."
Meta settled the states' teen-safety case on Wednesday for up to $18 billion over 10 years, ending claims that Instagram and Facebook were designed to get children addicted. About $12.7 billion is guaranteed money for the states. The remaining $5.3 billion, close to 30% of the total, only gets paid if YouTube and TikTok adopt similar or more restrictive teen settings, including a default one-hour daily limit.
The ads are asking for an outcome that costs Meta money. If the rivals sign on, the extra $5.3 billion comes due. Neither Alphabet, which owns YouTube, nor TikTok has commented. The Washington Times said neither company responded to its requests.
Figures reported by The Washington Times show how much the answer moves each state's payout:
| State | If TikTok and YouTube comply | If they don't |
|---|---|---|
| California | Up to $2.1 billion | Not disclosed |
| New York | Up to $1.5 billion | $819 million |
| Massachusetts | Up to $516 million | $366 million |
| Kentucky | Up to $358 million | Not disclosed |
| Maryland | Up to $327 million | Not disclosed |
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the settlement "secured meaningful, long-term changes to Meta's products and practices, while delivering real resources to Massachusetts." Her state plans to put the money toward youth crisis intervention, mental health services, after-school programs, and phone-free school initiatives.
What Meta agreed to
The settlement requires Meta to run these settings on teen accounts for the next decade:
- A default 2-hour daily limit across Instagram and Facebook combined, dropping to 1 hour if TikTok and YouTube join
- App access blocked from midnight to 6 a.m., with direct messages excepted
- No push notifications during school hours
- Usage prompts every 15 minutes, and like counts hidden by default
- Parental approval required to change the time limits
The known weak point is age verification. TechCrunch reported the whole deal hinges on age-checking technology that doesn't work well, and a former Meta executive told Time that "if young users are just using adult accounts, all this is worthless."
Evercore kept Meta at Outperform with an $860 target the day the settlement landed, and by early Friday afternoon META was up about 0.8% at $575, with Alphabet up about 1.6% at $346.
"All platforms should empower parents and support teens in these ways because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another," the company said in a statement quoted by The Washington Times.
