Meta settles states’ child-safety claims for $18B; Florida rejects deal as “peanuts”

Meta 就儿童安全指控与各州达成 180 亿美元和解；佛罗里达州斥其为“九牛一毛”

Meta agreed to impose daily limits on children’s social media use and pay nearly $18 billion in settlements with nearly every US state today, cutting short a trial in which Meta said several of the states were demanding over $1.4 trillion. The settlement requires court approval. Meta 今日同意对其平台上的儿童社交媒体使用时长实施每日限制，并与美国几乎所有州达成近 180 亿美元的和解协议，从而提前结束了一场审判。在此前的审判中，Meta 曾表示部分州要求的赔偿金额超过 1.4 万亿美元。该和解协议尚需法院批准。

Meta is facing claims that it designed its products to foster compulsive use by children and failed to warn users of addiction and mental health risks. Meta, which already uses ID checks and face analysis to verify user ages, said it agreed to impose on people under 18 a “default two-hour daily time limit that teens can only turn off with a parent’s permission,” a default block between midnight and 6 am, and a school mode in which notifications are muted by default from 8 am to 3 pm. Meta 面临的指控称，其产品设计旨在诱导儿童产生强迫性使用行为，且未能就成瘾及心理健康风险向用户发出警告。Meta 目前已使用身份验证和人脸分析来核实用户年龄，该公司表示，同意对 18 岁以下用户实施“默认每日两小时的使用限制，青少年仅在获得家长许可后方可关闭”，同时在午夜至凌晨 6 点之间默认锁定应用，并设置“学校模式”，即在上午 8 点至下午 3 点期间默认静音通知。

The two-hour daily “limit is cumulative across Facebook and Instagram, and time spent scrolling on both apps counts toward the total, including if we detect that someone has multiple accounts,” Meta said. Teens will “receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook or Instagram,” and “prompts when their total daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes.” Meta 表示，每日两小时的“限制时长在 Facebook 和 Instagram 之间累计计算，在两个应用上浏览的时间均计入总额，即使我们检测到某人拥有多个账户也是如此。”青少年在 Facebook 或 Instagram 上每连续使用 15 分钟，以及每日总使用时长达到 60 分钟和 90 分钟时，都会收到系统提示。

The primary settlement provides up to $16.7 billion for 47 states and the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. The settlement has a clause that would reduce Meta’s payment by $5 billion if other top social media firms don’t agree to similar terms. The states and Meta urged a judge to approve the 10-year settlement in a filing today in US District Court for the Northern District of California. 此次主要和解协议为 47 个州、哥伦比亚特区、美属萨摩亚、北马里亚纳群岛和波多黎各提供了高达 167 亿美元的赔偿。协议中包含一项条款：如果其他顶级社交媒体公司不同意类似条款，Meta 的赔偿金额将减少 50 亿美元。各州与 Meta 今日向美国加利福尼亚北区联邦地区法院提交文件，敦促法官批准这项为期 10 年的和解协议。

Texas said it struck a separate deal for $1 billion, raising the potential payments to states to nearly $18 billion. California Attorney General Bonta said today that “Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms—and will do it within months. We are talking about time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters, and so much more.” 德克萨斯州表示已达成一项 10 亿美元的独立协议，使各州获得的潜在赔偿总额达到近 180 亿美元。加州总检察长邦塔（Bonta）今日表示：“Meta 已同意进行大规模转型，以降低其平台带来的伤害风险，且将在数月内完成。我们谈论的是时间限制、学校期间停止通知、关键夜间时段锁定应用、禁止整容滤镜等等。”

Texas settles, Florida refuses deal

德州达成和解，佛州拒绝协议

Texas was not part of the case, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton simultaneously announced a $1 billion settlement of his own lawsuit against Meta. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier rejected the multi-state settlement, writing on X that “the payouts are peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features inflicted on kids, and a slap on the wrist for a trillion-dollar corp that’ll pay more to lawyers than to the states. We’ll see them at trial.” 德克萨斯州并未参与此案，但德州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）同时宣布了其针对 Meta 的诉讼已达成 10 亿美元的和解。佛罗里达州总检察长詹姆斯·乌特迈尔（James Uthmeier）拒绝了这项多州和解协议，并在 X 上写道：“与 Meta 以利润为导向的成瘾性功能对儿童造成的深重伤害相比，这些赔付简直是九牛一毛。对于一家万亿级公司来说，这不过是隔靴搔痒，他们付给律师的钱比付给各州的还要多。我们法庭见。”

Another post from Uthmeier said, “Trying to wipe out a decade of harm to the nation’s youth with one month’s cash flow is an insult. Corporations like Meta will never learn a lesson if they don’t incur real costs for breaking the law.” 乌特迈尔在另一篇帖子中表示：“试图用一个月的现金流来抹去对全国青少年长达十年的伤害，这是一种侮辱。如果像 Meta 这样的公司不为违法行为付出真正的代价，它们永远不会吸取教训。”

The advocacy group Public Citizen also was not impressed, saying that “billions of dollars sounds enormous to ordinary Americans, but for Meta, spread over a decade, it is hardly the kind of penalty that will force one of the world’s wealthiest Big Tech companies to rethink how it does business.” 倡导组织“公共公民”（Public Citizen）也对此表示不满，称“数十亿美元对普通美国人来说听起来是个天文数字，但对于 Meta 而言，分摊到十年里，这根本算不上什么惩罚，不足以迫使这家全球最富有的科技巨头重新审视其商业模式。”

The settlement got praise from The Tech Oversight Project, which said state attorneys general “dragged Meta into court and forced it to protect our kids,” but added that Congress should pass a law to enforce protections on all platforms permanently. 该和解协议得到了“科技监督项目”（The Tech Oversight Project）的赞扬，该组织表示各州总检察长“将 Meta 拖上法庭并迫使其保护我们的孩子”，但同时补充称，国会应通过立法，永久性地在所有平台上强制执行这些保护措施。

New Mexico, the other state that wasn’t part of today’s settlement, sued the company in a state court and recently won judgments requiring Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties and $567 million for a fund that would alleviate the “public nuisance” created by its social media services. Meta said it is appealing the ruling. 新墨西哥州是另一个未参与今日和解协议的州，该州在州法院起诉了 Meta，并于近期胜诉。法院判决 Meta 支付 3.75 亿美元民事罚款，并向一个旨在缓解其社交媒体服务所造成“公共滋扰”的基金支付 5.67 亿美元。Meta 表示正在对该裁决提出上诉。

The multi-state settlement says that states and territories can use the money for a variety of purposes, such as youth crisis services, after-school or summer programs, public health advertising, youth mental health programs, funding outdoor activities, training for medical providers on interactive media use and body dysmorphia, and grants to school districts and local governments. They can also use the money for “any similar remedial or restitutive purposes as those described” in the settlement and for “investigation, litigation, and related efforts to improve teen safety on social media.” 这份多州和解协议规定，各州和地区可将资金用于多种用途，例如青少年危机服务、课后或暑期项目、公共卫生宣传、青少年心理健康项目、资助户外活动、为医疗服务提供者提供关于互动媒体使用和身体畸形恐惧症的培训，以及向学区和地方政府提供拨款。他们还可以将资金用于和解协议中描述的“任何类似的补救或赔偿目的”，以及用于“调查、诉讼及为改善青少年社交媒体安全所做的相关努力”。

Meta settled after losing bid to halt trial

Meta 在停止审判的请求被驳回后达成和解

A trial involving four of the states involved in the settlement—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—began this month after an appeals court rejected Meta’s claim of legal immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Meta said in a July court filing that the four state AGs’ demands for damages would amount to more than $1.4 trillion. 在一家上诉法院驳回了 Meta 根据《通信规范法》第 230 条提出的法律豁免权主张后，涉及和解协议中四个州（加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、肯塔基州和新泽西州）的审判于本月开始。Meta 在 7 月的一份法庭文件中称，这四个州总检察长要求的赔偿金额将超过 1.4 万亿美元。

The attorneys general did not confirm that figure but said in a court filing that “Meta’s concern over the potential size of the requested remedies rings hollow in light of the evidence the AGs will present at trial. The AGs will prove that Meta deceived the public about the safety of its platforms while deliberately designing them to induce compulsive use and increase revenue.” 总检察长们并未证实这一数字，但在法庭文件中表示：“鉴于总检察长们将在审判中提交的证据，Meta 对所要求赔偿金额潜在规模的担忧显得苍白无力。总检察长们将证明，Meta 在其平台安全性问题上欺骗了公众，同时蓄意设计平台以诱导强迫性使用并增加收入。”

Meta’s minimum payment to the states will be around $11.7 billion over 10 years. Meta agreed to pay another $5 billion ($16.7 billion overall) if TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat end up settling state claims on similar terms. This effectively means that Meta will get a discount if its top rivals aren’t forced to impose the same restrictions on kids’ use. Meta, which still denies the states’ allegations, reported revenue of $60.8 billion and net income of $15.8 billion in Q2 2026. Meta 在 10 年内向各州支付的最低金额约为 117 亿美元。如果 TikTok、YouTube 和 Snapchat 最终以类似条款与各州达成和解，Meta 同意再支付 50 亿美元（总计 167 亿美元）。这实际上意味着，如果其顶级竞争对手未被强制实施同样的儿童使用限制，Meta 将获得“折扣”。Meta 仍否认各州的指控，该公司 2026 年第二季度报告的营收为 608 亿美元，净利润为 158 亿美元。

Other settlement terms

其他和解条款

Although state AGs announced the settlement amount as $17.1 billion, that includes a $459 million deal from the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport’s office said that states today “also announced the resolut[ion]…” 尽管各州总检察长宣布的和解金额为 171 亿美元，但这其中包括了剑桥分析公司隐私丑闻中 4.59 亿美元的和解金。新泽西州总检察长詹妮弗·达文波特（Jennifer Davenport）的办公室表示，各州今日“还宣布了解决……”