Social media giant Meta agreed to a landmark $17.1 billion multistate settlement announced by Attorney General Russell Coleman on August 26, 2026, addressing allegations that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms were designed to addict children and teens. Kentucky was one of four states —joining California, Colorado, and New Jersey—leading efforts in federal court to make social media platforms safer for kids. Under the settlement terms, Kentucky will receive $358 million. Additionally, Kentucky will also receive nearly $7.5 million from Meta to settle its investigation regarding Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm that improperly accessed user data ahead of the 2016 election. The settlement came just one week into what was expected to be a six-to-eight-week trial in Oakland, California. The settlement is one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in the country’s history, comparable to the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. Under the settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook, eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours, introduce age-appropriate content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material, and introduce stronger, more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts. Meta must also restrict children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m. Most of the changes are set to remain in place for at least a decade and will be monitored and assessed by an auditor and the states that settled, including Kentucky. Meta must bring on an independent auditor with “expansive access to information and resources” and would also be subject to an injunction “prohibiting it from making further false, misleading, or deceptive statements around its safety features”. The states accused Meta of deliberately designing addictive products specifically aimed at keeping young users hooked on their platforms despite knowing the psychological and physical harm it causes them. The settlement is subject to court approval. Sources Public News Service – Kentucky Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman’s official statement on the Meta settlement PBS NewsHour’s coverage of the Meta settlement Kentucky Lantern’s original reporting on the Meta settlement This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from Public News Service – Kentucky, enriched with 2 web searches. The original source is available at https://app.publicnewsservice.org/story/meta-settles-social-media-lawsuit-with-kentucky-and-other-states/f663125e-17ff-4ebd-8317-76fa1d97de83. View in feeds The post Meta settles historic lawsuit; Kentucky receives $358 million appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less