Kentucky AG talks about safety reforms from Meta settlement over teen social media addiction

FRANKFORT, Ky. (ABC 36 NEWS NOW) – Kentucky will receive $358 million from a $17 billion settlement Meta is paying to resolve a landmark case over teen social media addiction.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, along with several other states, took Meta to court alleging the company knowingly harmed kids’ mental health by designing and using harmful features on Facebook and Instagram that caused children and teens to become addicted to the apps.

Coleman said the money will help mitigate the harm done to an entire generation of kids, but he said the safety reforms Meta agreed to make are even more important.

“I can say without any hesitation that this [phone] represents one of the most dangerous items in your home, anyone who has kids, the homes of your viewers,” Coleman said.

As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to eliminate push notifications during school hours, implement age-appropriate content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material, and create a nighttime block restricting children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m.

“It’s the bucket of reform to the platform. It is stopping the doom scrolling, limiting that to 120 minutes, interrupting the doom scrolling. It is allowing our kids to sleep at night,” Coleman said.

Meta’s chief legal officer called on other social media companies to adopt the same framework.

“I’m pleased to announce that Meta has reached an agreement with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general from around the country on a new set of rules governing teens’ use of social media. The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms. Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us. Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away. As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead.”