Meta Pays More Than $45 Million in First Payment to NC from Attorney General Jackson’s Landmark Settlement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 1, 2026
Contact: comms@ncdoj.gov
919-538-2809

(Attorney General Jackson announced the historic settlement with Meta in August.)

RALEIGH — North Carolina has received its first payment, totaling $45,167,732, as a result of Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s historic child safety settlement with Meta.

The landmark settlement is the largest big tech settlement in history. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, will make major child safety upgrades to its social media platforms and will pay up to $17.1 billion to the states — including up to $645 million, with a guaranteed minimum of $451 million, to North Carolina. The remaining money will be paid over nine installments through 2035. Meta will make the remaining payments every Jan. 15, starting in January 2027.

How the settlement funds are used in North Carolina will be determined by legislation enacted by the General Assembly. Attorney General Jackson has encouraged the General Assembly to use the money to fund after-school and summer school programs, crisis helplines for children, and school health personnel.

“This settlement is about holding Meta accountable and protecting children,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Not only does it require Meta to make major safety changes to its platforms, but it brings hundreds of millions of dollars to our state. Part of our deal was making sure that these first payments would reach us quickly. Children were the ones harmed by Meta’s actions, and this money should be used to help them.”

Attorney General Jackson announced the settlement with Meta in August, and a judge approved it hours later, putting the settlement into effect. North Carolina and 32 other states jointly sued Meta in 2023. The states alleged the company violated consumer protection laws by designing Instagram and Facebook to addict children and increase the amount of time children spent on them and downplaying the risks.

As part of the settlement, Meta will implement comprehensive measures to keep children under 13 off its platforms, add default settings that better protect teens, and give parents more control of their teens’ accounts. Teens will begin to see changes on their accounts within a few months.

Among those changes are:

• Daily Time Limits: Teens will only be able to access their account for two hours every day. After they hit the limit, the account will time out. They won’t be able to scroll or access their feed but will be able to send direct messages on Instagram and Facebook.

• Nighttime Blocks: The feeds on the apps will not be accessible from midnight to 6 a.m. every night to protect teens’ ability to sleep. Additionally, teens will not receive any notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

• No School Hour Notifications: During school hours (8 a.m. – 3 p.m. on weekdays from Aug. 15 to June 15), Instagram and Facebook non-messenger notifications for teens will be turned off.

• Scrolling Pauses: At every 15 minutes of continuous app usage, Instagram and Facebook will display a pop-up notification to discourage teens from scrolling. Harder pauses will kick in once they have been on the app for 60 and 90 minutes a day.

• Likes: Meta will turn off counts of likes and reactions for teens by default on all posts, stories, and reels to help prevent teens from comparing themselves to others – which has been shown to have serious negative impacts on their self-image.

• Removal of Extreme Beauty Filters: Meta will prohibit filters that mimic cosmetic surgery or change someone’s body.

A copy of the settlement is available here.

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