New York will receive around $1 billion from Meta for mental health services and education as part of a larger settlement in a watershed trial over teen social media addiction, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday.
The final payout will land between $819 million and $1.15 billion, depending on whether other social media giants — such as TikTok and Youtube — also agree to settle with a coalition of dozens of states, including New York. Meta, the parent company that owns Instagram and Facebook, also agreed to sweeping changes to its platforms that build on new social media rules coming to the state next year.
“With significant new resources for our communities and comprehensive restrictions on Meta’s platforms for young people, we are taking a major step towards breaking the cycle of social media addiction,” James said in a statement. “This groundbreaking plan sets a standard of reforms for all social media platforms, and I will continue to work to extend these protections across the industry.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
New York Attorney General Letitia James is pictured in Queens on Friday, July 31, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The funds are intended for a mixed bag of services and programs for kids “to repair the harms of unhealthy social media use and prevent future damage,” according to a news release from the attorney general’s office.
Programs eligible for the funds include grants to schools to implement New York’s school cellphone ban, training for mental health professionals who work with young people, after-school and summer programs, and public health programs serving teens. This school year is the second with phone restrictions in place statewide.
“New York was the first in the nation to take on the fight against addictive algorithms,” Gov. Hochul said on X. “Today, families won. Meta is making changes we fought for and paying New York nearly $1 billion — and our kids will be safer because of it.”
Distribution is set to start over the next five months for the first 20% of New York’s share, according to the attorney general’s office. Overall, the total funds will be dispersed over a decade. The agreement is subject to court approval, which the judge is expected to grant.
The settlement with Meta is the largest reached with a single company in the history of the New York attorney general’s office, according to the release.
“The framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms. Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry,” C.J. Mahoney, chief legal officer at Meta, said in a statement.
“As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead,” Mahoney added, calling on TikTok and YouTube by name.
In total, Meta will pay between $12 and $17 billion to the coalition of states that first started suing the social media giant in Oct. 2023 over claims it knowingly took advantage of teens by deploying design features that employees and executives understood to be addictive and detrimental to their mental health.
It will also require Meta to verify the ages of its users, as was already set to be required in New York by January under a 2024 landmark state law known as the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act.
New York State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn), who sponsored the state law, called the settlement “a validation of what we’ve said for years: Big Tech has put their profits over our kids’ safety, with deadly consequences.”
“The design changes required by the court largely mirror those required by my SAFE For Kids Act, which we passed two years ago to protect children from addictive algorithms. Those algorithms work like heat-seeking missiles, targeting young people’s insecurities and keeping them scrolling endlessly.”
“To be clear, this settlement doesn’t erase the enormous harm Meta has caused. It doesn’t undo the damage to countless children’s mental health and well-being. And it doesn’t make up for the billions in profits they’ve made from taking advantage of young people.”
As part of the settlement, users under 18 may not receive push notifications overnight, which was also a requirement of the state law. But the new rules go even further to block minors from accessing Instagram and Facebook between midnight and 6 a.m., and impose daily two-hour time limits with exceptions for messaging features.
Time and content restrictions may be disabled with parental consent, and revisited in five years if other social media companies do not reach similar settlements with states.
“Children in New York and nationwide are suffering while companies like Meta reap immense profits by intentionally addicting them to their social media platforms,” James said. “We cannot allow social media companies to continue fueling the growing rates of low self-esteem, isolation, and depression among our youth.
