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    The lawsuit was originally filed in 2023 by 29 US states, alleging Meta deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive and lied about risks. They also accused it of violating a federal law on collecting children's personal information.

    The settlement - announced this week - included 48 states, plus the District of Columbia and three US territories.

    Several studies have found social media to be harmful to mental health, especially for children. Last year, a BBC investigation found children were being exposed to content about bullying, suicide and weapons on social media platforms.

    For Rose, Meta's settlement payment "is like throwing a couple of dollar bills at a problem", given how much money the company makes and how much she believes the industry profited from children during the pandemic.

    Joanie Story, a mother of four boys in Long Island, takes issue with another part of Meta's announcement - its conditions involving other platforms.

    The company will withhold $5bn of the settlement, and only release it if YouTube, TikTok and others also enter into similar agreements.

    It also said it would further tighten its time limit to one hour if other platforms implement similar restrictions. Story sees that as "petty".

    "That's like saying: 'You know, we have the ability to fix what is broken, but we're only gonna fix it halfway,'" she says.

    Still, Story is greeting the new rules as "good controls". She says she saw what a lack of controls could do when two of her sons were accidentally exposed to explicit content on a non-Meta platform. One boy has been in therapy for four years, she says.

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