Meta publishes an open letter asking TikTok and YouTube to join the agreement to protect teenagers

Meta has published an open letter asking TikTok and YouTube to join the agreement it has reached with 52 United States attorneys general to apply a series of measures to protect adolescents on social networks.

The company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has detailed in its announcement that the agreement entails the introduction, for teenagers, of a two hour daily limitnight blocking of the ‘apps’ by default, silent notifications during school hourswarnings every 15 minutes of continuous use and new parental controls.

The technology company maintains that cannot ensure that these protections work if the rest of the platforms do not join in, since when a teenager is restricted from one ‘app’, he switches to another.

“These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers, TikTok and YouTube, to apply the same measures,” Meta states in his open letter this Wednesday, in which urges counterparts to join them.

Likewise, in the agreement announced with a bipartisan group of attorneys general, in addition to the aforementioned measures, Meta has agreed to a payment of some 18 billion dollars over ten years. Of that amount, 70% (about 12.7 billion) will go to participating states, and the remaining 30% (about 5.3 billion) will only be released if YouTube and TikTok implement a one-hour daily limit, night mode and age verification measures, and each pay the amount equivalent to that 30%.

The states’ lawsuit alleged that Meta knowingly designed platforms like Instagram and Facebook to generate addiction in minors, despite knowing the harm that could be caused to them, and that it collected data from minors without the parents’ knowledge, violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The agreement comes while Meta faces other fronts in court over the same matter. Just this week, a former data scientist at the company stated that Meta avoided enabling teen protection on Instagram by default so as not to harm its “key metrics.”