Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is refusing to join a landmark settlement requiring Meta to pay up to $18 billion and overhaul protections for children on Facebook and Instagram, arguing that the agreement does not impose a meaningful enough penalty on one of the world’s most valuable technology companies.
The settlement announced Wednesday resolves claims brought by nearly every U.S. state over allegations that Meta deliberately designed features that encouraged compulsive use by children and teenagers while misleading families about the risks. Florida and New Mexico are the only two states excluded from the broader agreement, according to the Associated Press.
Instead of accepting its share of the settlement, Florida plans to continue pursuing its own case against the Facebook and Instagram parent company.
Florida calls $18 billion deal ‘peanuts’
Uthmeier sharply criticized the size of the agreement Thursday, arguing that an $18 billion payout must be viewed against Meta’s enormous market capitalization and revenue.
“$18 billion sounds like a lot of money, but this is a $1.5 trillion company,” Uthmeier said at a press conference in The Villages, according to Bloomberg Law. “This is a rounding error, weeks of revenue. This is peanuts.”
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Meta reported more than $200 billion in revenue in 2025, and the settlement would be paid out over a decade. The Associated Press noted that the potential $18 billion payment amounts to only a fraction of the company’s annual revenue. Meta shares closed about one percent higher on the day the agreement was announced, suggesting investors viewed the resolution as manageable.
Uthmeier also drew a comparison with the tobacco industry. The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between U.S. states and major cigarette manufacturers was worth more than $200 billion, while Meta today is valued at well over $1 trillion.
Florida believes the alleged harm caused by Meta’s platforms warrants a more substantial financial consequence.
“If they’re going to treat it like an insult, they will have to fight,” Uthmeier said, referring to Florida’s decision to continue its litigation, according to Bloomberg Law.
Florida’s lawsuit dates to October 2023, when then-Attorney General Ashley Moody accused Meta of knowingly deploying features designed to keep children and teenagers online for extended periods while collecting information from some children under 13 without proper parental consent.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office said the state’s complaint targets features including infinite scrolling and repeated alerts that allegedly draw younger users back to Instagram and Facebook. The lawsuit alleges violations of Florida consumer-protection law as well as the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Meta has disputed allegations that it intentionally designed its products to harm or addict children.
Most states accept sweeping restrictions on teen accounts
Florida’s rejection puts it at odds with a broad bipartisan coalition of attorneys general who say the settlement secures significant protections for young social-media users that could have been difficult to obtain through continued litigation.
Under the proposed deal, users under 18 will face a default cumulative two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram that teenagers themselves cannot disable without parental permission. Meta will also block teen access to the apps between midnight and 6 a.m. by default and mute most notifications during school hours.
The settlement also requires stronger age-assurance systems, expanded parental controls, restrictions on cosmetic-surgery and extreme-makeup filters, default hiding of public “like” counts and an independent auditor to assess Meta’s compliance.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office helped lead the case, said the agreement would establish “real change, real transparency, and real enforceable protections” for children using Facebook and Instagram, according to an Aug. 26 announcement from the California Department of Justice.
The principal multistate agreement provides for payments of up to roughly $17 billion over 10 years. California alone is expected to receive between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion if the settlement receives final court approval. Broader agreements associated with the litigation could bring Meta’s total payments to approximately $18 billion.
Meta, which does not admit wrongdoing under the agreement, has portrayed the deal as an opportunity to create common safeguards across the social-media industry.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in an Aug. 26 statement, adding that it wants the agreement to establish a “new industry standard.”
The deal also puts pressure on Meta’s competitors. Roughly $5.3 billion of the potential settlement payment is tied to rival platforms such as TikTok and YouTube adopting comparable safeguards and financial terms, according to the Associated Press. If competitors sign on, Meta’s default protections would become more stringent, including a one-hour daily limit per app and an expanded nighttime block from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.
For states that accepted the agreement, those behavioral restrictions may ultimately matter as much as the money. For Florida, however, the question is whether accepting the nationwide compromise would mean giving up the possibility of obtaining a substantially larger judgment of its own.
New Mexico verdict offers a possible roadmap for Florida
Florida’s decision to continue fighting Meta is not without precedent.
New Mexico also stayed out of the multistate agreement after taking Meta to trial and winning a judgment that could cost the company $942 million.
A New Mexico jury earlier this year imposed $375 million in civil penalties after finding Meta committed 75,000 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. In August, Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered an additional $567 million in remedies, including $420 million for treatment services for young people, the Associated Press reported.
The judgment also requires changes to Meta’s operations in New Mexico, including stronger age-assurance measures, restrictions on notifications, default privacy protections for minors and mandatory limits on young users’ time on its platforms.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez portrayed the verdict as proof that states can successfully take a social-media giant through a full trial rather than negotiating a settlement.
Torrez accused Meta of knowingly putting children at risk before declaring, “Today, it pays for that choice,” according to the New Mexico Department of Justice.
Meta has said it will appeal the New Mexico ruling and maintains that it has worked extensively to protect younger users.
The verdict nevertheless gives Florida a concrete example of what can happen when a state rejects a negotiated resolution and allows a case to reach judgment.
Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who studies social media and cybersecurity, told the Associated Press that states increasingly appear to have found a legal route for challenging harmful platform-design practices.
“The states are finally finding a way to rein this in,” Edelson said.
Uthmeier also pointed to New Mexico’s successful case against Meta, noting that Florida has roughly 10 times New Mexico’s population, according to Bloomberg Law. New Mexico has secured judgments totaling more than $900 million against Meta, although any potential award in Florida would depend on the violations proved and the penalties available under applicable law.
Meta therefore emerges from this week’s nationwide agreement with much of its state litigation resolved, but not all of it. New Mexico has already demonstrated the potential consequences of taking the company through trial, while Florida is now betting that continuing its case could produce a tougher result than joining the national settlement.
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