Meta reached a big number in the People of the State of California v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (2023). The case ended through a negotiation of terms. Nobody is declared a winner and there is no admission of wrongdoing nor being held liable for any violations of the law.
What were the terms and who gets paid?
Meta is overhauling teen-safety features, requesting other social platforms to follow in Meta’s footsteps and pay billions to states that joined the lawsuit. Texas is not among the recipients.
So where are Meta’s payments going?
📚 We’re Reading The Connection Cure by Julia Hotz (2026)
🎶 Listening to Dance, No One’s Watching by Ezra Collective (2024)
$459 million for the Cambridge Analytica cases
A Facebook personality quiz “thisisyourdigitallife” harvested personal data from 87 million users including friends of users who never installed the app. The data was sold to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica who built voter-targeting profiles for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The states sued Meta for failing to protect users’ sensitive information in four cases:
People v. Meta Platforms, Inc (2025)
State of New Mexico ex. rel. Raul Torrez v. Facebook, Inc (2021)
District of Columbia v. Facebook, Inc (2018)
People of the State of Illinois v. Facebook, Inc. (2019)
Facebook pays $459 million to the attorneys general, commonwealths and territories of:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 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, Wyoming.
$11.7 billion to 47 states in the case
Over 10 years, meta will pay states varying amounts to spend on crisis intervention, after-school programs, youth mental health programs, digital wellness, school district grants and on investigation and litigation costs.
The Connection Cure by Julia Hotz
Traditionally, when we get sick, heath care professionals ask “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists and social workers have started to flip the scrip, asking “What matters to you?”
That’s not fair’ payments $5 billion
Meta would pay an additional $5 billion contingency payments in ten installments of 10 years to the states only if YouTube, Snapchat and other platforms adopt Meta's teen-safety features, and competing platforms also agree to pay states.
Teen Safety Features
Meta will implement new safety features to teen accounts.
Two-hour daily limit across all Meta apps
Disabled app access between midnight and and 6 a.m. with disabled notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
School mode - disabled notifications during school hours
Additional parental controls on app usage
Hidden likes
Disabled cosmetic photo filters
Hidden age-inappropriate accounts and content
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