Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay $18 billion to settle ongoing US litigation over the safety of children and teenagers using social media. Under the settlement reached Wednesday with a coalition of 52 state attorneys general, Meta will pay the amount in stages over the next 10 years and introduce new restrictions for younger users. The company did not admit to violating any law.

The planned measures include limiting children’s daily app use to a maximum of two hours and issuing break reminders every 15 minutes. Accounts identified as belonging to minors will be automatically disabled from midnight to 6am, while notifications will be turned off during school hours, from 8am to 3pm. Like counts on users’ own posts and others’ posts will also be hidden by default to reduce popularity-related pressure on teenagers.

Age verification remains a major challenge for implementation. Meta may rely on facial analysis, government identification checks and online behavior analysis, all of which carry risks of incorrect age identification. Experts stressed that privacy protection is also important, while Meta said other major platforms should take similar child-safety steps.