08/26/2026
Fund IRL Statement on the Meta Lawsuit Settlement
August 26, 2026
Hello Kaye,
A major new social media settlement has put billions of dollars on the table for addressing harms to young people. Meta and attorneys general across 51 states and jurisdictions announced a settlement worth up to $17.1 billion, creating a significant opportunity to invest in the in real life (IRL) alternatives and supports that support youth well-being.
The settlement resolves the major state claims that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram in ways that harmed young people and misled the public about the safety of its platforms. The agreement also requires Meta to make significant changes to its platforms, including limits on young people’s time on the platforms, restrictions on nighttime access and school-hour notifications, stronger age assurance, and additional protections from harmful content. Today’s landmark Meta settlement is a significant step toward holding social media companies accountable for the impact their platforms have had on young people. The settlement establishes an important principle: when companies are held accountable for harms affecting young people, a meaningful share of the resources recovered should be used to help young people heal, reconnect and thrive.
Now that principle must become practice.
The settlement agreement explicitly names mental-health/crisis intervention, afterschool and summer programming, and digital well-being as eligible uses of state funds to remediate youth harms. This was not guaranteed, and it is a win that the broad coalition has been pushing for. However, the work is not done.
As states determine how settlement dollars intended to remediate youth harms will be invested within the terms of the settlement, Fund IRL urges leaders to put young people at the center of those decisions and dedicate all of the resources to the real-life experiences and supports that strengthen youth well-being, including afterschool and summer programs, sports, arts, mentoring, outdoor activities, mental health supports and community-based youth development.
Platform safeguards are essential, but protecting young people online is only half of the equation. We must also dramatically expand what is available to youth offline.
The settlement should be viewed as a starting point, not an endpoint. The financial recovery is not sufficient to mitigate the scale of the harm social media has caused, nor does it eliminate the need for continued accountability across the technology industry.
Fund IRL and its coalition partners will continue to work to ensure that every available dollar intended to repair harm to young people is tracked, and that state leaders hear directly from young people and the organizations serving them as decisions about those resources are made.
The next phase of accountability must be about more than what we take away from harmful online experiences. It must be about what we give young people in their place.
It’s time to fund real life.
