Image credit: Suzanne Kantra/Techlicious generated by ChatGPT
Iowa will be the first state to put settlement money into the hands of people harmed by Meta's apps, Attorney General Brenna Bird announced. Iowa is carving out $25 million of its share of a nationwide 17.1 billion settlement with Meta for a restitution fund aimed at teens who can show Facebook or Instagram misrepresented how safe the platforms were. Bird's office says it will release eligibility rules and claim instructions at a late date.
That $25 million comes out of roughly $126 million Iowa is getting from a much larger deal. In August, attorneys general in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and several territories, including Iowa, settled with Meta over claims that the company built Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to teenagers while telling parents and regulators the platforms were safe.
As part of the same multi-billion dollar national settlement, Meta is building three new defaults into teen accounts on Instagram and Facebook across the country: a two-hour combined daily time limit across both apps that a teen can turn off only with a parent's permission, a block from both apps between midnight and 6 a.m., and muted notifications on school days between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Parents can adjust or disable each one. Meta hasn't said when they take effect for teen accounts that already exist, so don't assume they've already landed on your kid's phone.
Settlements this size usually take a year or more to turn into a check or a working claims website. Most of the rest of Iowa's share is earmarked elsewhere, according to a CBS2 Iowa breakdown of the settlement terms: $10 million for a "Protect Iowa Students" grant program, money for prosecuting online sexual exploitation of minors, and $49 million that goes into the state's general fund. Only the $25 million restitution slice is meant for individual Iowans, and Bird's office hasn't yet said how a teen or parent proves harm, what a payout might look like, or when the claims window opens.
