Wyoming will receive more than $13 million from the landmark settlement deal with Meta Platforms over claims its social media sites have harmed children.
The funds are part of a multistate deal announced Wednesday marking the end of a trial over teen social media addiction. In the legal settlement, Meta agreed to pay a total of $18 billion to nearly every state and strengthen child-safety measures on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
“This is a historic first step in the fight to protect youth mental health, and we hope to see this trend continue with similar commitments from other members of the social media industry,” Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz said in a press release.
Wyoming officials are still working to decipher the terms around settlement distribution, Gov. Mark Gordon’s Communication Manager Amy Edmonds said Thursday. Right now it appears likely that the spending won’t be restricted, she said. That means it will probably be funneled into the general fund, which is under the discretion of the Wyoming Legislature.
“This is a good day for Wyoming’s kids and their parents,” Gordon posted Wednesday on Facebook, noting that he has been working with Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder “to protect Wyoming’s kids from Big Tech’s increasingly sophisticated and pernicious efforts to tantalize them to unfiltered social media.”
For the dozens of states involved, the settlement promises money for mental health programs for kids, including after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors. The funding will be allocated in payments over 10 years rather than in lump sums.
“When it comes to our children, consumer protection is nonnegotiable,” Degenfelder said in a Thursday statement. “I look forward to how these funds can be deployed for online safety and digital literacy initiatives and mental health resources.”
The governor’s office considers the extra guardrails promised in the settlement a huge win, Edmonds said. Kautz echoed that, noting that the safety features “will provide tangible relief to kids in Wyoming, as well as nationwide.”
Those features include hard daily time limits with mandatory pauses to interrupt endless scrolling for children; nighttime blocks to restrict access between midnight and 6 a.m.; elimination of push notifications during school hours and improved age-assurance measures. The company has also committed to stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders and content related to suicide and self-harm, as well as new limits on social comparison features.
These represent “groundbreaking” changes to Instagram and Facebook that are “more significant and comprehensive than previously ordered by any court,” the Wyoming AG press release said. “And perhaps most importantly, this settlement represents a down payment toward an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.”
Consumer protection
Some 48 states and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands had claimed the company designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things.
Attorneys general across the country sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit.
Wednesday’s agreement cut short an ongoing court case involving California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued Meta in 2023. The federal trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been among the witnesses expected to take the stand.
Wednesday’s settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. It also resolves the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.
Meta said in a blog post that it is “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in the blog post. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”
The company urged competitors TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety measures.
The $18 billion settlement is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201 billion.
Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan reported from London. Kaityn Huamani reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, and Wyatte Grantham-Philips in Chicago contributed to this report.
