Should Government or Parents Decide How Children Use Social Media?

In this week’s column, California Sports Lawyer® CEO and Managing Attorney Jeremy M. Evans argues that protecting children online should strengthen parental authority, not make the government the primary decision-maker over how children use social media.

People often do not read the fine print or adjust available features, which means a rule described as a default may become permanent in practice.

You can read the full column below. (Past columns can be found, here).

Protecting children from potentially addictive technology is a legitimate parental and public interest. However, when a court-approved settlement with Meta establishes default limits on when and how teenagers may use social platforms, which features they may see, and when parents must intervene to change those settings, child protection begins to resemble government-directed parenting. That development should concern parents and make public officials, legislators, and courts wary of imposing similar controls without careful consideration of parental choice and family autonomy.

Meta entered into a court-approved settlement with a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general representing 52 U.S. jurisdictions, resolving claims that Facebook and Instagram were designed in ways that encouraged compulsive use by minors and that Meta misrepresented the associated risks. Without admitting wrongdoing, Meta agreed to implement new protections for users under 18 and to make payments over ten years. The agreement provides for approximately $12.7 billion in payments, with another approximately $5.3 billion contingent on TikTok and YouTube implementing specified protections and making corresponding payments.

The new protections include a default two-hour daily limit that applies cumulatively across Facebook and Instagram, restricted access between midnight and 6:00 a.m., muted notifications during school hours, stronger age-assurance measures, and expanded parental controls. Parents may override the Time Limit and Night Mode restrictions. Direct messaging is excluded from the Time Limit, Night Mode, and School Mode requirements so teenagers may continue communicating with friends and family.

There are three primary concerns with the Meta settlement. The first is that it establishes government-backed defaults affecting parental choice. Although parents retain the ability to change certain settings, defaults are influential. People often do not read the fine print or adjust available features, which means a rule described as a default may become permanent in practice.

The second concern is that these controls arose through litigation and settlement rather than legislation debated and enacted by elected representatives. The settlement process is lawful, and the resulting agreement received court approval. Nevertheless, using litigation to establish detailed platform rules affecting millions of families deserves careful scrutiny, transparency, and public discussion.

By pursuing litigation against Meta, government officials have influenced the rules governing minors’ use of social media. Government regulation intended to protect children is not new, but using a multistate settlement to establish detailed digital-platform restrictions presents a newer form of intervention. Ideally, parents should decide how, when, and where their children engage with social media.

Schools and teachers also exercise supervisory authority over students during school hours, including the authority to establish reasonable classroom technology policies. Those efforts should be applauded when they support education and student well-being. That school-based authority, however, is limited in time and purpose, just as government authority should be.

The third concern is whether this intervention will lead to broader controls. Once the government uses litigation or legislation to regulate lawful decisions within private family life, the boundaries matter. A measure justified as a narrow safety protection can become a precedent for wider controls. That possibility does not make every intervention improper, but it requires defined limits, transparency, public debate, and continued respect for parental authority.

On the other hand, it is unfortunate that society has reached a point where social media use may become so compulsive that government intervention appears necessary. Whether Meta intentionally encouraged addictive behavior remains disputed. The lawsuit alleged that Meta designed features that drove excessive use, collected and used data belonging to children under 13, and misled users and families about platform safety. Parents cannot independently redesign recommendation systems, inspect internal company research, or control the architecture of a global platform. Government therefore has a legitimate role in enforcing laws against deceptive practices and unlawful conduct.

It is also true that many social media platforms operate through an advertising-supported business model. When access appears free, users provide the attention and data that make the platform valuable. Social media companies use activity and inferred interests to sell targeted advertising access. Companies such as Google and Meta derive substantial revenue by connecting advertisers with audiences while providing content and opportunities for human interaction.

Protecting minors should not quietly normalize government control over family decisions and social interaction. Government can require truthful disclosures, meaningful parental tools, appropriate safeguards, and accountability for unlawful conduct. Parents, however, should remain the principal decision-makers regarding their children’s daily social media use.

Parents and all users must also remain diligent about their own social media habits. What we watch, read, and spend time with shapes us. The goal should be to protect children by empowering parents, not to make government the permanent author of a family’s digital rules.

About Jeremy M. Evans:

Jeremy M. Evans is the CEO and Managing Attorney at California Sports Lawyer®, representing companies, creators, and talent in transactional matters across entertainment, media, sports, and intellectual property, with a focus on dealmaking. An award-winning attorney and industry leader, Evans is based in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. He can be reached at Jeremy@CSLlegal.com. www.CSLlegal.com.