Meta's $18 billion settlement to close US lawsuit: What changes for the company, teens, rivals and the world

Meta has settled a lawsuit with US states and territories for $18 billion and has agreed to implement new age restriction safeguards over the next decade. According to The Hill, this settlement puts pressure on Meta's competitors, including TikTok and YouTube, as the company tries to establish an industry standard for online safety for children.

Meta is seeking to ensure its competitors will face the same rules, according to a business professor told CNBC. The company is also running full-page ads in US newspapers demanding that TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable teen safety protections, Bloomberg reported.

Experts told CNA that it makes sense for Meta to roll out its restrictions elsewhere, and the growing awareness of social media harms may pressure other platforms to do the same. The requirements for Meta to change some of its product features may apply only to the US market, but it will likely start receiving requests to apply similar considerations elsewhere.

Brief written by urgent.news from CNBC Technology, The Hill, CNA - Singapore, Channel News Asia, Techmeme — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.