Meta to pay Texas over $1 billion, add new teen safety limits on Facebook and Instagram

Meta has agreed to pay Texas more than $1 billion and put new safety restrictions on Facebook and Instagram for young users, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday, closing out a state investigation into how the company handled children on its platforms.

The settlement requires Meta to adopt stricter age verification tools and limit teen users to two hours a day on its apps. Notifications will be turned off by default during school hours unless a parent changes the setting, and likes and reactions on posts will be hidden by default. Meta said the change is meant to reduce social comparison among younger users. The company will also build a nighttime access mode that restricts notifications and certain features for children during set overnight hours. Meta has also committed to continuing to limit age-inappropriate content and to keep offering parental supervision tools.

Paxton's office said the more than $1 billion payment will go toward remediation efforts across Texas, including youth mental health services, crisis resources, digital literacy programs, after-school programs and grants for Texas schools.

"It is my mission to fundamentally change and strengthen the standards for child safety online, and this settlement is a major step forward in the fight to ensure our kids are protected online," Paxton said in a statement announcing the deal.

The settlement is separate from a tentative $17 billion agreement Meta reached with 33 other states to resolve a related lawsuit over social media harms to teens, a case Texas was not part of. That deal, described as the largest of its kind involving a social media company, is expected to end the ongoing trial in that case.

This is the second time Paxton's office has extracted a payment of more than $1 billion from Meta. In 2024, the company agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle claims it collected and used Texans' biometric data, including facial geometry captured through photo-tagging features, without proper consent. Paxton's office has also secured a $1.375 billion settlement with Google over allegations the company violated Texans' privacy rights, making Wednesday's deal the third settlement exceeding $1 billion that his office has secured from a major technology company.

The Meta agreement follows a pattern in Paxton's office of pursuing large technology companies over how they handle user data and, more recently, child safety specifically. In July, the office reached an agreement with Discord requiring the messaging platform to adopt stronger age-assurance measures and default safety settings for Texas children. Paxton's office is also set to go to trial against TikTok this fall over similar child safety allegations.

Scrutiny of Meta's platforms has grown over the past several years as parents, lawmakers and mental health providers have raised concerns about how algorithm-driven feeds and endless scrolling affect teenagers' mental health. Other lawsuits and state investigations have pointed to internal company research and executive testimony as evidence that Meta knew about potential harms to young users before making changes to its products.

For Texas, the settlement adds another funding stream for youth programs, including crisis hotlines and school-based counseling, that already compete for state dollars. Paxton's office has not yet detailed how it will distribute the settlement funds to schools and community programs.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement terms or a timeline for rolling out the new safety features across its platforms.