First Thing: Meta agrees to make sweeping changes to apps for teens | Martin Belam

Safety features including usage limits and night-time blocks to be set by default.

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Meta has agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit.

The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay up to $18bn.

Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use nationwide in the US.

California and 28 other US states sued the $1.36tn (£1tn) company over allegations that Meta deliberately designed addictive products that hooked young people, leading to mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and suicide.

As part of the settlement, the company denies wrongdoing.

What will be changing in the apps? The biggest alteration is that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, is now required to make many of its safety limitations the default setting for accounts created by teens, a pivot from its previous opt-in approach to child safety.

Nick Robins-Early and Johana Bhuiyan explain more in this piece: six key takeaways from the end of the Meta trial .

Will other companies be affected? Meta is putting the agreement forward as a precedent for other social media companies to follow.

The company’s chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, said: “Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution.

We therefore call on our industry peers … to implement this new framework.” Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap face thousands more similar US lawsuits brought by families, individuals, school districts and other attorneys general.

Are campaigners satisfied with the result? Arturo Béjar, an ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower, said the outcome “is not an all-clear to say the product is safe.

The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of saying: ‘Well, you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day’.