your kid's phone changes

and Alaska is walking away from the same deal with at least sixteen million dollars.

Forty seven states, plus D.C. and several territories, took Meta to federal court back in 2023 over how Instagram and Facebook were built for kids. That case just settled for 17.1 billion dollars.

Alaska's guaranteed cut is sixteen million, paid out over ten years. It climbs to twenty three million if TikTok and YouTube agree to the same terms.

But the money is not the part that shows up on your kid's phone.

Under this deal, teen accounts get a two hour daily limit switched on by default. Notifications go quiet between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on school days, and the apps go dark from midnight until six in the morning.

There is a nudge every fifteen minutes of nonstop scrolling. There is an option to shut the algorithm off completely and just see a plain feed. Autoplay can be turned off, and like counts get hidden for teen accounts.

Our acting attorney general, who has two kids herself, called the whole thing a relief.

None of it is live yet. A federal judge in California still has to sign off, and Meta only pays the full amount if the other two platforms come along.