We have left our children completely alone on digital platforms. Because parents, the media and public institutions have failed to mount a consistent fight, children have increasingly become addicted to digital media. So, what does the picture look like around the world?
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has reached a settlement worth up to $16.68 billion in a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states alleging that the company designed its platforms to make children and teenagers addicted.
After more than three years of legal proceedings, Meta agreed to commitments including daily usage limits, nighttime access restrictions and stronger age-verification measures.
Pressure is also mounting in Europe, where the EU is investigating Meta and TikTok under the Digital Services Act.
Türkiye, meanwhile, legislated a minimum social media age of 15 under regulations that came into force in May 2026.
Across the Atlantic, the European Union is keeping Meta under regulatory scrutiny rather than primarily through the courts.
As part of a formal investigation launched in May 2024, the European Commission on April 29, 2026, announced preliminary findings that Meta had failed to adequately prevent users under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook.
According to the Commission, the minimum age of 13 stipulated in the platforms’ terms of service is not effectively enforced in practice; users can easily provide false ages when opening accounts, while the process for reporting the presence of a user under 13 to the platform is complicated.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the European AI and Children Summit in Copenhagen that the bloc would take more aggressive action against TikTok’s addictive interface features and weaknesses in Meta’s age-verification systems.
Although the process remains at the “preliminary findings” stage, if a violation is formally established, Meta could face a fine of up to 6% of its worldwide annual turnover under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Similar investigations cover TikTok and X; the EU’s data regulator has already fined TikTok 530 million euros for transferring user data to China and X 120 million euros for violating the DSA.
The Commission is also working on new rules that would ban children under 13 from using social media across the bloc, as well as a privacy-focused EU-wide age-verification system, by the end of the year.
Meta has also been fined in Türkiye over child safety concerns, but the scale is nowhere near that of the U.S. or Europe. That is why the company faces little deterrence.
The Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) fined Meta in December 2024 directly over its failure to adequately protect children. The investigation concerned Instagram accounts opened by users under 18 in private mode being converted into business accounts and made publicly accessible, potentially exposing children’s data.
KVKK found Meta’s data protection measures inadequate and imposed a TL 2.5 million fine, plus an additional TL 9 million penalty for failing to take precautions against accounts being easily made public, bringing the total administrative fine to TL 11.5 million. This is an extremely ineffective penalty.
Türkiye took regulatory action before Meta’s U.S. settlement, without waiting for the court process to conclude. Law No. 7578, published in the Official Gazette on May 1, 2026, amended the Internet Law No. 5651. Under the new rules, social network providers cannot offer services to children under 15 and are required to take the necessary technological measures, including age-verification systems, to enforce the rule.
The law also requires platforms to provide clear and accessible parental-control tools, subject purchases and memberships to parental approval, and enable parents to monitor and limit usage time.
Meta, which has paid fines in Türkiye that could be considered laughably small, now faces a hefty bill under its U.S. settlement.
The U.S. is sending the first bill for new forms of addiction comparable to nicotine dependence. EU penalties are waiting in the wings. Türkiye has yet to impose any meaningful fines in this process.
As a result, digital wolves can continue to view penalties as little more than a minor cost of doing business.
Here is the timeline of the historic settlement:
October 2023: A large number of U.S. states, including California, New York and Colorado, filed a federal lawsuit against Meta. The states alleged that the company used designs intended to make children and teenagers addicted to its platforms solely to increase advertising revenue, while misleading the public despite knowing the damage this caused to young people’s mental and physical health.
2024-2025: Thousands of separate lawsuits were filed across the U.S. by states, school districts and individual users against Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snap. Some of these cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceeding.
March 2026: In the first individual damages case heard as part of the process, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay a plaintiff $6 million – the first concrete judgment against the companies in the broader legal battle.
Early Aug. 2026: A New Mexico state court ordered Meta to pay substantial damages in a separate case over allegations that the company harmed the mental health of child users, highlighting the scale of the company’s potential overall liability.
Mid-Aug. 2026: The federal trial in Oakland began. During the second week of proceedings, prosecutors, Meta lawyers, former company employee Arturo Bejar and Instagram head Adam Mosseri gave testimony. At the same time, reports said Meta’s internal assessments estimated that the company could face total penalties of up to $1.4 trillion if it lost the case, with the figure approaching Meta’s market value and potentially pushing the company toward a settlement.
Aug. 26, 2026: The proposed settlement between Meta and state attorneys general was submitted to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the case, for approval. Meta agreed to introduce daily usage limits for younger users, nighttime access restrictions, stronger age-verification systems and parental-control tools.
Aug. 27, 2026: The final framework of the settlement became clear. Under the agreement, daily usage limits will be enabled by default, notifications will be paused during school hours, app usage will automatically be blocked at night, and only parents will be able to remove those restrictions.
The age-verification system for identifying users under 13 will be strengthened, while an independent monitor will be appointed to oversee compliance with the commitments.
The financial value of the agreement could reach $16.68 billion, with most of the amount reportedly distributed to states over a 10-year period to fund online safety initiatives for young people.
Meta continued to reject the allegations against it throughout the process and did not admit liability to the plaintiffs. The company said it would continue fighting other cases involving individual injury claims.
More than 90% of children aged 6-15 in Türkiye use the internet and over 66% use social media, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data.
Among those aged 11-15, the social media usage rate rises to 82%, while the rate of regular use reaches 96.9%.
Against this backdrop, Türk Telekom is offering parents screen-time limits and content-control tools through its Safe Family package, developed in partnership with digital security company McAfee.
According to TurkStat's Information and Communication Technology Use Among Children survey, internet usage among children aged 6-15 rose from 82.7% in 2021 to 91.3% in 2024.
The share of children in the same age group using social media reached 66.1%, rising to 82% among those aged 11-15. Among children who use social media, 96.9% do so regularly.
According to data released by TurkStat at the end of 2024, Türkiye had a total of 21.8 million children aged 0-17. This highlights the size of the child population represented by the rates above.
TurkStat's 2025 Time Use Survey also showed that the amount of time people generally spend on social media had nearly doubled compared with the previous period.
Depending on the platform, some features may differ across Windows, Android and iOS, while others may not be supported on certain operating systems. In addition to such commercial solutions, legal requirements are now also coming into force.
Under a regulation published in the Official Gazette on May 1, 2026, social network providers are required to develop parental control tools that allow parents to monitor and limit the amount of time children spend on social media, oversee account settings and require parental approval for paid transactions.
The regulation will take effect in practice on Nov. 1, 2026. Türkiye has thus become the third country, alongside Australia (age 16, December 2025) and France (age 15, September 2026), to legally restrict children's access to social media.
Against this backdrop, Türk Telekom's Safe Family package, developed in partnership with McAfee, offers parents a set of tools to manage their children's digital activity.
The application can be installed on PCs and mobile devices and used over both mobile and fixed internet connections, offering the following features:
Screen-time limits: Parents can set and restrict the amount of time children spend using devices and applications.
Content and app blocking: Internet content and applications deemed inappropriate for children can be blocked.
Usage reporting: Parents can view children's activity on digital applications and platforms and receive regular reports on device usage.
Location tracking: The application also provides information on the child's location.
