JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch says the state will receive close to $189 million as part of a settlement with Meta Platforms over claims the company harmed children using its apps.

Fitch filed a lawsuit against Meta in October of 2023.

Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

Fitch accuses the company of harming children who use its platforms.

“Unfortunately, I think we saw the social media cartel put social media over our children’s welfare,” Fitch said. “They understand what they’ve done to them emotionally, physically, mentally.

Fitch said Meta made its algorithms addictive and understood the emotional, physical and mental effects on children.

Fitch also accused Meta of causing children to have mental health issues and disrupting their daily development.

“You think about all the things our children could see were horrific,” said Fitch. “The children were able to see a number of things that were inappropriate content, pushing that material out to them. Now that will be stopped as well. That’s going to protect our children all the way around.

New provisions under the settlement

The settlement, reached nearly three years after the lawsuit was filed, calls for new provisions on Instagram and Facebook.

● Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling.

● “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. and disabling nighttime notifications from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.

● Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. from August 15 to June 15 each year.

● Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.

● Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders and content related to suicide and self-harm.

● Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.

● Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in children and teens.

● Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.

The settlement also includes provisions giving parents more control.

“Let the parents know who their children are interacting with, let the parents know if their child mentions self-harm, give parents the control to set limits that are even stricter than the new default,” Fitch said.

51 states and territories join settlement

In all, 47 states and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands were a part of the settlement.

“We’re standing strong in Mississippi to protect our children,” Fitch said.

Mississippi will receive close to $189 million over the next 10 years under the settlement.

However, that amount could increase to roughly $270 million if other platforms, including Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok, agree to the changes.

Fitch said the settlement funds have designated uses.

“They’ll be used for youth mental health, after school or summer program, outdoor activity, public health awareness and digital literacy,” Fitch said. “Honestly, our children, their childhood has been stolen in so many ways, so this gives us an opportunity to restore our children.”

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