Posted 31 August, 2026
The Iowa Attorney General announced a landmark $17.1 billion-dollar multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc.—one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history.
The Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Meta on April 8, 2026, arguing that the tech giant violated state consumer protection laws by harming children and misrepresenting the safety of Instagram. Under today’s settlement, Iowa is guaranteed to receive $126,485,391 (in ten installments). The multistate settlement also resolves similar claims by 46 other states and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, where one of the common harms alleged was Meta knowingly exposing young users to serious mental health harms. In addition to $126 million, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. This settlement is a monumental victory for the protection of America’s children and will fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens.
The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
- 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. These limits remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
- “Nighttime blocks”: Restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
- Limited school-time access for children: Eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
- Robust age assurance measures: More effectively verify the age of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls: 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: Will limit beauty filters and visible “like” counts that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Regular Independent Audits: Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
These groundbreaking changes to Instagram and Facebook are more significant and comprehensive than any terms ordered by any court.
As part of the multistate settlement described above, Meta and certain states (including Iowa) also reached a settlement to resolve the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties. Meta agreed to pay Iowa an additional $9,186,865 to settle those claims, bringing Iowa’s total settlement dollars to $135,672,256.
The Iowa Attorney General's office is continuing the fight to enforce Iowa’s consumer protection laws and protect children through other lawsuits against TikTok and Roblox.
Along with Iowa, the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.