BATON ROUGE — Louisiana is among 47 states that entered a multibillion-dollar settlement with tech company Meta to resolve teen social media addiction cases, Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement Wednesday.

The settlement will see Louisiana receive over $180 million across nine years, with Louisiana’s involvement being handled “in-house,” with no outside counsel fees. 

The landmark settlement with Meta, currently at $12.19 billion, will grow to $17.1 billion if Core Industry Members Snap, TikTok and YouTube enter deals with similar injunctive and monetary relief. The broadening of the settlement would see Louisiana get an additional $67 million. 

"This settlement is an earthquake when it comes to child safety reforms and Big Tech accountability. This isn’t a payoff—it’s meaningful reform that gives Louisiana the tools we need to focus on the safety of our children in the digital world," Murrill said.

A condition of the Meta settlement requires the company to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children, "nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., limited school-time access for children and eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year, more robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users and stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.

According to Murrill, these will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor.

The settlement also resolves claims Louisiana filed against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.

Murrill says that just because a settlement has been made with Meta does not mean the problem is solved. She says that it extends to other Big Tech companies, including Snap Inc. and Discord. 

Murrill says that, on Wednesday morning, legal action was filed with the 21st Judicial District of Louisiana. 

"These companies profess that their platforms are safe environments for children to communicate, but nothing could be further from the truth," Murrill's office added. "Snap and Discord are platforms that facilitate encrypted messaging and are frequently used by predators to evade detection and chat with children through games like Roblox."

The state is seeking injunctive relief and restitution in this case.