(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont released the following statement regarding the $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. that was announced today and will enforce sweeping new safety reforms to protect American children on Instagram and Facebook:
“Social media is all too often anti-social. Tech companies have increasingly been taking advantage of kids, creating apps and algorithms that decrease their attention spans, drive them to become addicted, cause them to tune out real life, and harmfully impact their mental health and wellbeing. This multistate settlement is long overdue and requires strong protections for children’s online safety. Connecticut has been taking steps to lead this charge, including through legislation that I was proud to sign into law this summer, but the best and strongest protections need to be enacted on a nationwide level. I am grateful that our state has Attorney General Tong serving as our counsel and has been leading in court on this issue to represent Connecticut’s children on these pressing legal matters.”
Connecticut will receive $265.4 million under the settlement, with most of the funds being directed to initiatives that remediate youth harms from social media, such as mental health and crisis intervention, after school and summer school programming, and implementation of phone-free school zones.
In June, Governor Lamont signed into law a multi-pronged, bipartisan piece of legislation that he championed, which will work to protect Connecticut children and adults from some of the harms associated with recent advancements in the digital age, like youth social media addition and concerns over the growing use of artificial intelligence.