Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced Wednesday the state is included in the $17-billion settlement with Meta Platforms, the social media company behind Facebook and Instagram.
Indiana’s portion of the settlement could range from roughly $300 million to as much as $419 million.
Indiana was part of a multi-state lawsuit against the company over allegations its platforms were intentionally built to be addictive to children, and that Meta knew it was harmful and hid that information from the public.
Meta has denied those allegations but, in the settlement, agreed to place restrictions on the use of its platforms, in addition to the multi-billion-dollar settlement.
“This settlement is a milestone victory for Hoosier families,” said Attorney General Rokita in a statement. “For years, Meta prioritized engagement and profits over the mental health and well-being of our children.”
According to the AG’s office, the settlement is one of the largest consumer protection agreements in state history, outside of the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s.
Rokita said the settlement will allow Indiana to support impacted Hoosiers while continuing to focus on lasting protections against social media companies.
“This is not just about money — it’s about changing how these platforms operate so they stop exploiting the developing brains of our kids,” he said. “Indiana will continue working with other states to secure similar protections from companies like Discord, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Our children deserve better, and we will keep fighting until they get it.”
As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to a two-hour hard cap on daily limits for children under 18 on both Instagram and Facebook. Those caps also include pauses after 15, 60 and 90 minutes of use to reduce continuous scrolling.
The agreement also adds stronger parental and content controls. Those include better safeguards against bullying and content protection measures.
“I want to be clear, it’s ultimately the parents' responsibility to raise your children,” Rokita said. “But as a parent of two teenage boys, I know how hard it is.”
Other restrictions and protections include robust age verification, limits on social comparison elements including beauty filters, and a nighttime block on apps between 12 am and 6 am.
Shu Su is an associate professor of early childhood, youth, and family studies at Ball State University. She said the settlement was a meaningful win for young people in Indiana.
“What this settlement does is it starts to place more responsibilities on the platform itself,” she said. “We know children and adolescents are still developing self-regulation. It’s not realistic to expect them to manage a highly engaging platform on their own.”
Su said it will be important to watch how other social media companies such as TikTok respond.
“I think this [could] really help establish a broader industry standard rather than just to say, ‘Hey, family, it's your job to manage the risk,’” she said.
Contact Government Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org
