Jackson and Stein shared details of the agreement during a news conference at the North Carolina Department of Justice headquarters in Raleigh. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Maurice "Mo" Green also participated in the announcement.
"Today's settlement represents a major win for parents across the state. It will help us keep young people safe by requiring meta to change how its apps operate to reduce teen addiction," Stein said.
State leaders said the case focused on allegations that Meta's social media platforms were designed in ways that encouraged excessive use by young people and failed to adequately address concerns about their impact on youth mental health.
"We all know what it's like to slip into a trance with the endless scroll. The endless scroll was a big piece of engineering addiction. As a result, by default, Meta will now have to introduce productive pauses when kids have been scrolling for a while in order to encourage them to stop," Jackson said.
As part of this deal, Meta will eliminate or change designs and algorithmic features. That includes:
- A default daily time limit of two hours for users under 18 that can only be lifted by a parent. If other social media platforms agree to similar terms, the daily time limit will drop to one hour.
- A ban on displaying numbers of likes or reactions to users under 18.
- A ban on cosmetic procedure image filters for users under 18.
- An option for users under 18 to have a non-personalized feed, meaning a feed that doesn't use an algorithm to target them with content aimed to keep them endlessly scrolling.
- Default blocks on notifications to users under 18 from10pm to 7am and during the school day.
- An enhanced mechanism for teens to report potentially harmful content and a requirement that Meta respond to 90% of those reports within six hours.
North Carolina joined the lawsuit while then-Attorney General and current Governor Josh Stein was in office.