Ken Paxton Secures Billion-Dollar Settlement to Hold Meta Accountable As Others Call for YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat to Step Up

AUSTIN — Attorney General Ken Paxton joined 47 other state attorneys general in signing on to a landmark $18 billion settlement with Meta – including more than $1 billion coming directly to Texas, adding another chapter to Texas record of leading the nation on child online safety and parents rights.

To resolve claims that their platforms endangered young users, Meta has agreed to implement first-of-their-kind product design changes across Instagram and Facebook, including a two-hour daily time limit, a strict 12 a.m.–6 a.m. night mode curfew, age assurance measures, notifications disabled by default during school hours, likes and reactions hidden by default to limit social comparison, and options for parents and teens to disable personalized feeds and auto-play.

Meta has also committed approximately $18 billion, paid in annual installments over ten years, to fund youth online safety initiatives in participating states.

Notably, the settlement is structured on a sliding scale. The strictest protections, including a 60- minute hard cut-off on daily use, are contingent on widespread industry participation. Should additional social media platforms like YouTube, Snap, and TikTok agree to the same terms,

Meta is prepared to implement those tighter limits, a signal to the industry that kid-friendly design is no longer optional.

Texas Has Been Here Before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton negotiated the state’s own agreement alongside the

multistate deal. Meta will pay more than $1 billion directly to Texas, funding youth mental health services, crisis resources, digital literacy initiatives, after-school programs, and grants for Texas schools.

“It is my mission to fundamentally change and strengthen the standards for child safety online, and this settlement is a major step forward in the fight to ensure our kids are protected online,” Paxton said.

It is the third settlement worth more than $1 billion that Paxton has secured from a technology company, following a $1.4 billion agreement with Meta over its unauthorized capture of facial recognition data and a $1.375 billion settlement with Google over Texans’ privacy rights.

The settlement builds on a track record Texas has been establishing for years. In 2025, the Texas Legislature passed the App Store Accountability Act, which requires app store parental consent before a minor can download any app, making Texas one of the first states in the country to put stronger tools for parent in place before children can even use apps.

The App Store Accountability Act and new settlement will likely work in tandem. The settlement mandates how platforms must treat teen users. The App Store Accountability Act determines whether those users can be accurately identified as teens in the first place, closing a gap that advocates say has undermined prior attempts at platform-level safety reform.

That makes the Texas law a template as much as a statute. The settlement’s age-assurance requirements only bite if a platform   knows a user is a minor, and the App Store Accountability Act forces that determination at the app store. That means every app, including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat, will all know which users are not adults. Unlike the settlement, the App Store Accountability Act does not depend on a company agreeing to protections and applies equally to every app.

Problems Persist With YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat The deal's architecture reflects an uncomfortable reality about teens' digital habits. According to Pew Research, YouTube and TikTok, not Instagram or Facebook, are the most popular platforms among teenagers. Almost three times as many teens use YouTube (92%) as

Facebook (31%), and roughly 20% say they use YouTube and TikTok "almost constantly."

Another 55% are active on Snapchat.

Absent broad industry participation, child safety groups warn that restrictions specific to Meta platforms risk redirecting teen attention to other apps who have made no comparable commitments, like Google’s YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Texas State Representative Ellen Troxclair applauded the efforts of AG Paxton, but added that it is “time for TikTok and YouTube to do their part.”