World News for Students of English

02-09-2026 07:00

Meta has agreed to pay an 18 billion-dollar (16.5 billion euros) settlement to resolve claims from 48 US states, Washington, D.C., and three territories.

The legal actions accused Facebook and Instagram of harming children’s mental health through addictive features.

Although Meta denied any wrongdoing, the company agreed to pay the sum in annual instalments over a 10-year period to avoid potentially higher fines. Beyond the financial settlement, Meta will introduce significant online safety features for teenage users. These include a default two-hour daily time limit, automatic night-time blocks between midnight and 6:00 AM, and restrictions during school hours. Additionally, Meta plans to hide like counts and photo filters that simulate cosmetic surgery.

However, Meta insists that 30% of the funds will only be released if competitors like TikTok and YouTube adopt similar safety restrictions, which started a debate about industry-wide accountability.

Difficult words: installment (one of several regular payments made over time to pay for something), default (a setting or option that is automatically chosen by a system if you don’t change it yourself), accountability (responsibility for your actions and ability to explain them when something goes wrong).

You can watch the video news lower on this page.