A major court ruling has landed against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, over the impact of social media on children and teenagers. The decision was framed around the idea that the company must now pay the price for the choice it made to put profits ahead of children's safety, marking a significant moment in the growing legal fight over young people and social platforms.
As part of the ruling, Meta was ordered to pay more than half a billion dollars for harming children's mental health. The financial penalty sits at the center of the decision and underlines how seriously the court treated the claims about the effect of the company's platforms on younger users who spend large amounts of time on the apps.
The ruling also imposes concrete changes to how the platforms work for younger people. For users under the age of 18, Meta must eliminate push notifications at night and during school hours. In the same decision, the company was also ordered to hide like counts for those younger users, altering two of the most visible parts of the apps for that age group.
Beyond notifications and like counts, the decision requires Meta to add safeguards for AI chatbots on its platforms. That places a new obligation on the company around the automated chat tools available through its apps, forming part of the broader set of changes the court has ordered specifically for accounts belonging to minors.
The court further ordered Meta to put new time limits on the apps for under-18 users, setting a cap of no more than 90 hours per month. The requirement directly restricts how long younger users are able to spend on the platforms each month, standing alongside the other conditions the ruling attaches to accounts held by children and teenagers.
Behind the legal case are families who say the platforms caused real harm. Tammy Rodriguez says her daughter Selena became addicted to Instagram and developed depression, and took her own life at the age of 11. Rodriguez is now among the thousands of lawsuits that have been filed against social media platforms over their effect on children and teenagers.
Speaking about why she is pursuing the case, Rodriguez said she is doing it to save other kids' lives and to spare other parents the pain she lives with, describing coming home after work to a house that is now quiet. For its part, Meta says it will appeal the ruling, adding that it works hard to keep people safe on its platforms.