Meta has agreed to make major changes to Facebook and Instagram for younger users, including daily time limits, overnight lockouts and restrictions on notifications during school hours, in a settlement that could have direct relevance to New Zealand’s proposed under-16 social media restrictions.
The changes follow legal action in the United States over allegations that social media platforms were designed in ways that encouraged addictive use among children and contributed to mental health harm.
Meta has not admitted wrongdoing.
But under the settlement, Facebook and Instagram will be required to introduce stronger safeguards for teenage users, including a default two-hour daily limit, overnight access restrictions, fewer notifications during school hours and tighter controls around age-inappropriate content.
The settlement is worth up to US$18 billion over 10 years, with part of that amount dependent on whether rival platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat adopt comparable measures.
For New Zealand, the significance is not just the size of the settlement.
It is that one of the world’s biggest social media companies has now formally accepted that platform design itself can be changed to reduce harm.
New Zealand is debating a much tougher approach
New Zealand is currently considering legislation that would prevent children under 16 from holding accounts on major social media platforms.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has backed the proposal, arguing that social media is damaging young people’s sleep, mental health, education and family life.
The proposed model would place responsibility on platforms to take reasonable steps to establish whether users are at least 16.
That could involve account information, facial age estimation, digital identity tools and other age-assurance methods.
Companies that failed to comply could face significant penalties.
The proposal has already created political disagreement.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opposed the move, arguing it risks overreach, privacy problems and unintended consequences.
ACT has also raised concerns about age verification and surveillance.
That debate has so far focused largely on whether under-16s should be kept off social media entirely.
Meta’s settlement introduces another option into the discussion.
Instead of only asking whether teenagers should be banned, policymakers can now ask whether platforms should be required to redesign the experience itself.
What Meta has agreed to change
| Measure | Meta settlement requirement |
|---|---|
| Daily use | Default limit of about two hours for teens |
| Overnight access | Blocking or restricting access during overnight hours without parental approval |
| School hours | Most notifications disabled |
| Age controls | Stronger age-verification and age-assurance systems |
| Content | Additional restrictions on age-inappropriate material |
| Engagement features | Some reaction and popularity features hidden or reduced |
| Financial settlement | Up to US$18 billion over 10 years |
University of Sydney media and communications expert Professor Terry Flew said the settlement was significant because the legal cases focused on how the platforms were designed rather than simply the content appearing on them.
That distinction matters.
A harmful piece of content may be created by another user.
But autoplay, endless scrolling, notifications, recommendation systems and engagement prompts are decisions made by the platform itself.
Flew said the settlement came after a long period in which Meta had rejected claims that its services were responsible for youth harm.
He said the move could influence countries already considering stronger restrictions, including Australia and potentially New Zealand.
Could this make an under-16 ban easier to enforce?
One of the biggest challenges facing New Zealand’s proposal is age verification.
A law saying under-16s cannot have accounts is only effective if platforms can reliably identify who is under 16.
Meta’s new commitments may be useful here.
The company will need stronger systems to identify teenage users in order to apply its time limits and other protections.
That means it is difficult for platforms to argue that age-based controls are technically impossible.
The harder question is how those systems can work without requiring excessive collection of personal information.
Australia has already faced that problem.
Its under-16 social media restrictions came into force in December 2025, requiring major platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent children under 16 from maintaining accounts.
Australian authorities allow platforms to use a range of age signals, including account activity, language patterns, images, audio, device information and other indicators.
Those methods may reduce reliance on passports or formal identity documents, but they also create privacy concerns of their own.
New Zealand could potentially use a layered model
Meta’s changes raise the possibility that New Zealand does not necessarily have to treat the policy choice as either a total ban or no regulation.
A layered system could potentially combine several controls.
For children under 16, account restrictions could remain the primary rule.
For older teenagers, stronger design protections could apply automatically.
Those could include:
daily usage limits
overnight lockouts
school-hour notification restrictions
reduced exposure to appearance-related content
stronger default privacy settings
restrictions on algorithmic recommendations
parental supervision tools
That approach would not remove the arguments around age verification.
But it could make the policy more proportionate by separating younger children from older teenagers.
Experts say design matters as much as access
Dr Raffaele Ciriello from the University of Sydney said Meta’s settlement was important because it recognised that social media design itself should be subject to public accountability.
He argued that parental controls and individual time limits are useful but still place too much responsibility on families when the underlying business model is built around maximising engagement.
That is a point New Zealand policymakers may need to consider.
If platforms make money by keeping users active for longer, there is an obvious commercial tension between engagement and wellbeing.
A child may be told to spend less time online while simultaneously being presented with notifications, recommendation feeds and other features specifically designed to bring them back.
Regulation that focuses only on the child may therefore miss part of the problem.
Australia offers both a precedent and a warning
Australia’s under-16 regime has become an important reference point for New Zealand.
Supporters say it demonstrates that governments can require platforms to take responsibility for age restrictions.
Critics say it also demonstrates how difficult enforcement can be, particularly when young users can try to bypass controls.
The Australian eSafety Commissioner requires platforms to monitor signals that may suggest an account holder is under 16, including school-hour activity patterns, youth-focused content, social connections and location information.
That approach may eventually give New Zealand useful evidence about which systems work and which create unnecessary privacy risks.
The key advantage for New Zealand is that it does not have to design its regime in a vacuum.
Australia is already testing age restrictions.
The United States is now forcing platform-design changes through litigation.
New Zealand can study both.
What Meta’s settlement does not solve
The settlement should not be treated as proof that social media harm has been solved.
Meta continues to deny legal liability.
Some of the new controls will require parental involvement.
Some changes may initially apply only in the US jurisdictions covered by the settlement.
And the effectiveness of a two-hour daily limit will depend heavily on whether teenagers simply move to another platform.
That is why Meta has pushed for competing services to adopt similar rules.
If restrictions apply only to Instagram and Facebook, users may shift towards TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat or newer platforms.
Any New Zealand regulation would therefore need to apply consistently across the major services used by young people.
The debate is moving beyond a simple ban
The most important lesson for New Zealand may be that the social media debate is becoming more sophisticated.
The question is no longer only whether children should be allowed on social media.
It is also whether the platforms themselves should be allowed to use design features that encourage prolonged or compulsive use among young people.
Meta’s settlement gives governments a concrete example of changes a major technology company says it can implement.
That could strengthen the case for New Zealand to demand more from platforms, regardless of whether Parliament ultimately supports a complete under-16 restriction.
If the proposed ban proceeds, stronger age assurance and default safety controls could make it more workable.
If the ban does not proceed, the same measures could still form the basis of a tougher digital duty of care for young users.
Either way, Meta’s decision has changed the argument.
It is now much harder for governments to accept that the only available tools are parental supervision and voluntary platform settings.
The technology to impose stronger controls clearly exists.
The remaining question for New Zealand is how far it wants to require platforms to use it.
Source: University of Sydney expert commentary, Reuters reporting on Meta’s US settlement, Australian eSafety Commissioner guidance, and New Zealand public statements on proposed under-16 social media restrictions.