Meta Pressures TikTok, YouTube to Shoulder Same Teen Safety Rules After $18 Billion Deal — BigGo Finance

Meta Platforms (META) is pushing its biggest rivals to accept the same teen safety restrictions it just agreed to with U.S. states, arguing that limits on Instagram and Facebook alone would simply drive young users to other apps.

The company took out full-page ads in major newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times on Thursday and Friday, calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt equivalent protections. The campaign is expected to run through the weekend.

“We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone,” Meta said in the open letter. “If only a single app is regulated, teens will simply move to other apps.”

The ad blitz follows a landmark settlement announced Wednesday in which Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve lawsuits brought by 47 states and Washington, D.C. over allegations that it designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive and harmful to teenagers. The company had denied the claims but opted to settle roughly a week into trial.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the agreement goes “far beyond what any court could have ordered.”

The deal imposes some of the toughest restrictions yet on how U.S. teens use Meta’s platforms. Users under 18 will face a combined two-hour daily limit across Instagram and Facebook. Access will be blocked between midnight and 6 a.m., notifications silenced during school hours, and beauty filters that have been criticized for fueling body image issues will be restricted by default. Teens will also be able to switch to a chronological feed of accounts they follow rather than algorithm-driven recommendations.

Meta has six months to roll out the changes.

The $5.3 Billion Lever

The settlement contains an unusual provision that links Meta’s total payout to the behavior of its competitors. Under the terms, Meta is obligated to pay approximately $12.7 billion over 10 years. The remaining $5.3 billion would be released only if state governments secure comparable settlements and safety commitments from other platforms, including TikTok, YouTube and Snap (SNAP).

That structure gives Meta a direct financial incentive to lobby for industry-wide regulation. If rivals adopt similar rules, Meta pays more but avoids a scenario where its own restrictions push teens toward less-regulated apps, eroding its user base and advertising revenue.

The Wall Street Journal described the arrangement as a strategy to create “an environment where teens don’t migrate to competing apps.”

If TikTok and YouTube do reach their own agreements, Meta’s daily usage limit for teens would tighten further, from two hours to one hour, according to the settlement framework.

Industry Reaction and Skepticism

Meta’s campaign lands as TikTok and YouTube face their own legal battles over youth safety and addictive design. TikTok previously reached a $400 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in a separate children’s privacy case. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said states want other companies to take similar steps.

C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, framed the push as a necessary expansion of the settlement’s reach. “Meta’s precedent should be followed by other social media platforms,” he said in a statement posted to the company’s website. “We urge our competitors TikTok and YouTube to adopt teen protection measures.”

Some critics question whether the restrictions will actually work. The Wall Street Journal noted that no system can perfectly prevent teens from lying about their age or creating fake parental accounts. Katharina Kopp, deputy director of the Center for Digital Democracy, told the newspaper that parental controls “only work in households where adults have time, are tech-savvy, and maintain stable relationships with their children.”

Australia’s experience offers a cautionary example. When the country became the first to ban social media use for children under 16 in December 2025, downloads of smaller platforms not covered by the law, such as Lemon8, Yop and Coverstar, surged. Australian authorities subsequently asked those services to review whether the law should apply to them as well.

Meta is betting that a coordinated approach across major platforms will minimize that kind of leakage. The company’s campaign also serves a reputational purpose: positioning Meta as the industry leader on teen safety rather than a defendant that paid a massive settlement.

Wall Street analysts remain bullish on the stock. Meta carries a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 38 Buys, six Holds and zero Sells over the past three months, with an average price target of $751.05, implying roughly 30.5% upside from current levels.

The settlement resolves a multi-state lawsuit filed in 2023 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general who accused Meta of designing its platforms to encourage compulsive use and of improperly collecting children’s personal information. The funds will be distributed to states over the next decade for counseling, wellness programs and other initiatives aimed at mitigating the harms of youth social media use. Individuals will not receive direct payments.