Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced Wednesday that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to a historic $17.1 billion settlement after a bipartisan multistate coalition sued the company for allegedly designing addictive features to keep minors engaged on their platforms, among other claims.
The attorney general’s press release states that this settlement constitutes “one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history outside of the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s.” Of the $17.1 billion, Missouri will receive between $100 million and $150 million. Meta must also implement a series of safety features to protect children on Instagram and Facebook.