News

As social media platforms increasingly shape how people are informed, connected and, at times, harmed online, governments are also intervening more directly in these environments, particularly where children are concerned. Meta recently agreed, subject to court approval, to a package of new safety measures for teenagers in the United States, including default time limits and restrictions on late-night use, as part of a multi-billion-dollar settlement of litigation alleging harm to young users. The UK government has said it expects similar protections to extend to UK users.

State lawmakers and youth advocates are calling for further social media regulations after the blockbuster, multi-billion-dollar settlement announced this week between state attorneys general and Meta. The sweeping agreement is being heralded as a watershed moment in a years-long effort to address concerns about social media addiction and harm to youth. But it is unlikely to slow momentum in statehouses for new laws governing how social media sites interact with kids.

Days into a bellwether trial brought by four states, Meta reached a settlement with a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general to resolve their claims, agreeing to pay up to ~$17 billion and to make a series of teen-safety changes to Instagram and Facebook. The day after the settlement was announced, Tech Policy Press convened a live podcasting recording to assess the settlement and its implications.

A day after news of the $17.1 billion settlement between Meta and state attorneys general, On Your Side’s Susan Campbell breaks down what’s actually changing for teens on Instagram and Facebook — daily time limits, overnight access restrictions, silenced notifications during school hours, limited beauty filters, and stricter age verification. Arizona AG Kris Mayes says the case echoes tobacco and opioid lawsuits, and predicts it will reshape social media for good.

Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 states, state attorneys general announced Wednesday.

New agreement advances safer product design on Instagram and Facebook to address social media harms to young people, but leaves key engagement-maximizing features linked to those harms in place by default.

In August 2026, KGI welcomed Mari Verulashvili as Policy Analyst. Mari supports KGI’s work on AI and platform governance and competition policy in digital markets.

A remedy of “Pay for Half” that limits the share of devices for which Google can pay for default search status, as well as the share of revenue Google can pay its channel parters for that status, offers a middle ground that would help restore competition while preserving revenue for distribution partners, argue Alissa Cooper, Fiona Scott Morton, and Nick Jacobson.

The milestone ruling by a New Mexico court last week that found Meta contributed to a youth mental health crisis could serve as a blueprint for other states — and individuals — to mount lawsuits seeking to hold tech companies liable for harms stemming from their platforms.

Last month may come to be seen as a turning point for the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Over the course of July, the European Commission paired major policy initiatives with a series of consequential enforcement actions involving some of the world’s largest technology companies. Even seasoned DSA experts have been struck by the pace and scope of these developments.

On February 9-10, 2027 in Washington, D.C., the Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI), the Yale Tobin Center’s Digital Economy Project, and Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) will co-host the Digital Competition Conference 2027 (DCC ‘27), an annual policy and research conference that explores the latest lessons, challenges, and opportunities in competition regulation and enforcement in digital markets. The conference brings together researchers, policymakers, regulators, businesses, litigators, technologists, and civil society experts for evidence-driven dialogue about business practices that pose competition risks or may generate other harms, possible remedies, and areas for future analysis.

Now that Google is required to share its search data with competitors, the question turns to whether such sharing can be done in a way that is privacy safe. Do PETs offer a solution? Is this simply a place where privacy interests and competition interests are perpetually at odds? Is this simply another opportunity for Google to delay? Alan Chapell sits down with Alissa Cooper of the KGI to discuss the DOJ search remedies, the EU Digital Markets Act, privacy, AI, and what search data sharing could mean for competition and innovation.