Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark on Wednesday announced that the state will receive a $92.7 million payout from tech giant Meta. The deal, which represents the largest single-company settlement in Vermont history, stems from a 2023 lawsuit alleging that the company knowingly put children in harm’s way through its “addictive” Instagram app and other social media platforms.
The state settlement is part of a larger one that will require Meta to pay at least $12.2 billion — and up to $17.1 billion — to 51 states and territories.
During a video press conference on Wednesday morning, Clark called the settlement “historic” and an example of what a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general can accomplish when they work together.
The settlement also requires Meta to make fundamental changes to Instagram and other Meta social media platforms for users under 18. The company must create an improved age-assurance process so that kids under 13 don’t use the platform and mandate a daily time limit of two hours a day. Meta has also agreed to ban the use of Instagram for children and teens between the hours of midnight to 6 a.m. and to ban notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. and during the school hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The company has 15 to 30 days to make some of the changes, while others will take several months, according to Justin Kolber, chief of the Attorney General’s Office of Environmental and Public Protection Division.
The restrictions that Meta must put in place “will be incredibly helpful at getting us to a place where we can interface online and get the benefits but limit all of the risks that have been plaguing the mental health of young people, especially girls,” Clark said.
Vermont’s 114-page lawsuit against Meta alleged that Instagram violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act by “engaging in unfair and deceptive acts and practices in Commerce” by covering up the ways in which Instagram harms young people. The social media app causes them “to use the platform compulsively and excessively” through features such as infinite scroll and Reels, the suit said.
That causes myriad harm to youths, the suit asserted, including increased levels of anxiety and depression, sleep disruptions, and suicidal thoughts. It also exposes youths to harmful content, the suit said, including violence, adult sexual activity, and content that promotes extreme weight loss and disordered eating, which disproportionately harms teen girls.
Vermont may be eligible for an additional $34 million — bringing the total to $127 million — if other major social media companies, including TikTok, YouTube and Snap, enter into similar deals with the state, Clark said. In 2024, her office filed a still-pending lawsuit against TikTok related to its harm to youths.
The deal is what’s known as a “structured settlement,” meaning that Vermont will receive the money in annual installments of $8.8 million rather than a lump sum. The legislature will decide what to do with that money, Clark said, but her office is happy to advise the body on how it could be spent. Approximately $3.9 million of the payout to Vermont stems from a 2022 claim related to the company’s sale of personal data to third-party groups, including political analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, she said.
“We’ve seen a lot through the course of this investigation, and, frankly, our investigation of TikTok, that has inspired us to be advocates for change,” Clark said. “I think that passing that enthusiasm and knowledge on to the legislature is always helpful, but we are deferential to the legislature in fulfilling their role of spending the taxpayers’ money.”
Clark said on Wednesday that Vermont played a critical role in paving the way for the multistate settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court in May declined to hear an appeal by Meta in the state’s case. The company tried to get the lawsuit thrown out by asserting that it could not be sued in Vermont court because it had no specific ties here. The appeal followed a failed attempt by Meta in 2025 to have the case dismissed in the Vermont Supreme Court.
“This settlement is a watershed moment in the history of social media,” Clark said, one that will help usher in “an era where social media can be safer for children, safer for all of us.”
Correction, August 26, 2026: A previous version of this story misidentified Justin Kolber.
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