Washington State META SETTLEMENT Washington AG will not pursue youth online protection legislation in wake of Meta settlement Court deal enacted some, but not all, protections lawmakers and AG sought and headed off constitutional questions Oct. 15, 2026 Washington Attorney General Nick Brown will not ask state lawmakers again to pass a sweeping bill to limit social media for youths, saying a recent court settlement with a social media giant is sufficient. “The Meta settlement’s provisions go beyond the policies we were hoping to implement via legislation,” the Democrat’s office said in a statement to the Standard. “We have shown that a good path for us is through litigation and through investigation rather than trying to convince the Legislature.” For two years in a row, a bill that aimed to rein in addictive social media feeds for under-18 users died in the state legislature because opponents said it infringed on free speech and data privacy. Last month, Brown, a Democrat in his first term, who had requested that state legislation, secured some of those provisions by going through the courts. In the largest settlement with a major tech firm in history, Brown settled with Meta for $237 million as part of a $17.1 billion nationwide settlement. Brown’s office says it no longer plans to reintroduce the Protecting Children Online Act in light of the settlement. Highlights of the agreement include a two-hour cap on minors’ daily use of Instagram and Facebook that will last for five years. That cap will lower to one hour per day and be extended to 10 years if other social media platforms also settle. Push notifications will be paused during school hours and access to the app will be blocked altogether from midnight to 6 a.m. Instagram and Facebook will offer the option for minors to switch off their algorithmic feed in settings, and cosmetic filters and counts of likes will be removed. All of these provisions hinge on age verification, which met with significant backlash in the state legislature because of concerns that it would infringe on the privacy of users. Those concerns were not resolved by the settlement. Meta is required to adopt an age-assurance method by August 2027, and to remove under-13 users and implement the requisite design changes for under-18 users by the following year. Meta has two options: It can employ third-party age verification tools, or it can develop its own in-house age assurance method. In the European Union, which recently adopted social media restrictions for minors, social media platforms will deploy facial-scanning technology to verify that users are over 13. Other possible methods include uploading government documents and inputting personally-identifiable information like addresses to be checked across existing databases. “At this point in time, there’s not really a way to do age estimation or age verification without requiring some kind of data,” said Anni-Michele Jean-Pierre, the senior policy director at Children’s Alliance, a statewide advocacy group that worked closely with Brown’s office to push the Protecting Children Online Act. Some advocates say Meta shouldn’t need to use third-party tools because they believe the company knows the ages of its users already, just based on their online behavior. “This doesn’t mean that Meta is collecting any more data than they already have about people,” Jean-Pierre said. “What we’ve heard from folks in the industry is that they can already tell, with the existing technology that they have, how old someone is with a relative level of certainty within the first few minutes that they’re online based on their activity.” The other sticking point for the Protecting Children Online Act was its possible unconstitutionality. Read more: washingtonstatestandard.com/…

Social media is lobotomizing American children. Intentionally addictive algorithms are plunging our nation's children into depression, anxiety, and isolation in numbers never before seen. Meta has responded to this serious and growing problem by banning children under 13 from accessing Facebook or Instagram and implementing enforceable measures to protect all kids on their apps. Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube (Google) must step up to this new industry standard. Children on Instagram and Facebook deserve the same rights and protections as their peers on other social media sites. That is why APP wrote this coalition letter to Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube (Google) demanding that the safety of American kids come first. Thank you to @Moms4Liberty, @CatholicVote, @CWforA, @family_policy, @aclj_action, @DigiChildAllnce, @MTMehan, @NDFamAlliance, @PrjctSTAND, @DigiChildInst, @FICAction, @DigitalProInst, @AFPPennsylvania, @CCVPolicy, @VitaetTerra, @clareanneath, @AngelaStiens, @SherriBrantley, @KSFamilyVoice, @PFIpolicy, @indianafamily, @Schilling1776, @JonSchweppe, @HeritageP4, @jessgarvin85, @TFFVA, @NFRW, @FTLauderdaleYR, (continues in reply) foxbusiness.com/technology/s…