Without a Child Rights Framework, Meta’s $17.1bn Settlement Will Only Go So Far

News of Meta’s $17.1 billion settlement with a California court, in recognition of its impact on the mental health of children, has ricocheted around the world and generated heated debate.

The case has led to much public comment about the power and (lack of) accountability of Big Tech, children and social media, mental health and addiction. Some are even calling this social media’s “Big Tobacco Moment.”

But almost nothing about the discourse and analysis addresses the settlement through the lens of child rights or the human rights responsibilities of companies. Yet, focusing on children’s rights to protections and on company responsibilities to protect children’s rights is key not only to understanding the significance of the case but to identifying what needs to be done — not just by Meta and not just in the United States — to protect child users of tech platforms and social media around the world.

Human and child rights serve as a universal standard for all peoples and nations and companies. They offer an internationally recognized standard for guiding company decision-making rather than more contested concepts of ethics, democratic values, safety, and responsibility, or settlements achieved in courts in different jurisdictions.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most ratified and universally recognized of all the human rights treaties; ironically, the United States is the only government not to have ratified it. And though it was adopted more than 30 years ago, long before the digital age, its commitment to children’s rights to health as well as the “development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being” makes it a very relevant standard.

The question of how companies should embed respect for human rights into their decision-making has evolved significantly over the last two decades. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) apply to companies across all industries and provide an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts caused, contributed by and linked to business activity.

In the context of social media and technology platforms, the UNGPs establish normative standards that can and must guide company action about how they respect the rights of child users. And, in addition to defining company responsibilities, the UNGPs define the obligations of governments to set and enforce standards to ensure that companies live up to those responsibilities to protect children.

What does a business and human rights framing bring to the Meta settlement?

The framing has several important implications. Firstly, and absolutely fundamentally, children's rights are universal and transcend borders and nationalities. A child-rights framework provides a basis for asking what companies owe to children as rights-holders irrespective of where they live. Thus, while this settlement relates only to children in the US, companies' measures to protect children's rights must extend beyond the US to cover children around the world.

It is simply unconscionable that companies acknowledge the harms to children globally but only address them in one country. As Nighat Dad of the Meta Oversight Board argues, “The settlement Meta signed protects teenagers in participating US states. The exclusion of everywhere else is a choice. Meta can make a different one.”

Second, the implications should extend beyond Meta. The issues raised by the settlement and the recognition of the harms to children and other users must be recognized by all relevant companies. All social media companies should be affirming their recognition of their responsibilities through a human rights policy or statement that makes an explicit commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNGPs.

And while Meta’s call on other tech companies to do more to protect child rights is fair, its insistence on conditioning 30% of the settlement on actions to be taken by YouTube and TikTok is, from a child rights perspective, unacceptable.

Companies cannot negotiate their human rights responsibilities on the basis of the conduct of their competitors. A company's responsibility to respect human rights does not become conditional on whether another company does the same.

Third, the settlement reminds us of the limitations of voluntary human rights commitments. Meta has had a human rights policy which includes an explicit commitment to the UNGPs and the Convention on the Rights of the Child since 2021. That commitment did not prevent the harms now being addressed through litigation and settlement. While voluntary due diligence is hugely important and something to be advocated for, it cannot replace the impact of regulatory frameworks and enforceable legal standards.

At the same time, the settlement reinforces the importance of human rights due diligence to prevent or mitigate risks and harms. Many of the commitments made by Meta to protect children’s health and rights are those that experts and advocates have long been calling for. But it’s vital that the proposed new design features undergo child rights due diligence before deployment to assess risks and prevent or mitigate possible harms. The UNGPs require companies to treat human rights due diligence not as a compliance check after a product or policy is launched, but as a process integrated into the earliest stages of planning and development to prevent harm from occurring.

All the measures currently being proposed by Meta must be tested and assessed through the lens of child rights and the key principles set out by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: non-discrimination; best interests of the child; right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child as well as the evolving capacity of the child.

And, under the critical principle of “know and show”, companies must demonstrate transparently to individuals or groups who may be impacted — in this case children and their parents — and other relevant stakeholders, including investors, what risks they have identified and what measures they are taking to address them. Information provided must be in a form appropriate to the company's human rights impacts, accessible to its intended audiences and contain enough information for people to evaluate the adequacy of the company's response.

Fifth, children must have a meaningful voice in the process. The UNGPs make it clear, in Principle 18, that human rights due diligence demands “meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders.”

It will be vital to ensure that child rights due diligence involves engagement with children and their parents and caregivers, especially those who are particularly vulnerable to harms, including those with disabilities, LGBTQ+ children, those belonging to racial and religious minorities and others, around the world.

In the last two years, many tech company trust and safety teams have suffered significant cuts as companies redirected much of their expenditure towards AI development and aligned themselves with the priorities of the Trump administration and its anti-rights and anti-regulatory posture.

As Irene Khan, former UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, pointed out in her 2025 report, Threats to Freedom of Expression Online in These Turbulent Times, “most “Big Tech” companies based in the United States have aligned their policies and positions with that of its Government, rolling back their promises of safety online.”

If tech companies are to take their obligation to due diligence seriously, consultation with children and their families, transparency, and ongoing monitoring, staffing levels and expertise must be reassessed to ensure that the company has the capacity to implement its child rights responsibilities effectively.

A rights-based word of caution

Criticizing Big Tech is currently very fashionable and a la mode. And there are lots of good reasons to do so. But that doesn’t mean that all the actions being proposed to regulate tech companies are legitimate through a human rights lens.

Meta’s settlement may, in time, come to be seen as a pragmatic and cynical compromise to protect long-term profits or a real opportunity to create lasting change for children. Much will depend on whether human rights lie at the heart of the response. Maintaining a child rights-centered framework will be essential to ensure that tech companies are striving to enable children to exercise their rights as well as be protected from harms and risks.