New child safety measures Meta pledged in U.S. settlement not coming to Canada

OTTAWA – New child protection measures Meta has promised as part of a massive legal settlement in the United States won’t be implemented in Canada.

A spokesperson for Meta says the changes on its Facebook and Instagram platforms will only be made in the United States.

“While the changes announced today are U.S. specific, Meta already has strong protections in place for teens and offers simple controls for parents around the world today,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Meta reached a settlement worth up to US$18 billion that ended a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by nearly every U.S. state.

The company agreed to adopt a series of safety features as part of the settlement, which it outlined in a post Wednesday.

That includes two-hour daily time limits that count toward both Instagram and Facebook and which can only be disabled with a parent’s permission. It will also block teen access to its apps between midnight and 6 a.m. and eliminate push notifications during school hours.

Meta also says it will allow teens to turn off autoplay and that it will hide the number of likes and reactions for teens by default, as well as disable cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters for teen users.

It says it will also take stronger measures to identify underage users and strengthen parental controls, among other changes.

“We’ll continue to monitor how these changes are working in the U.S. and engage in productive dialogue with other governments to support age-appropriate experiences on our platforms, and across the many apps teens use,” the Meta spokesperson said.

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In Canada, the federal government has proposed a new digital safety bill that would force social media platforms to block access for kids under 16. Social media platforms will be able to obtain an exemption if they have put in place sufficient safeguards. The legislation will also impose a duty to act responsibly on platforms.

Meta is pushing for rivals TikTok and YouTube, which is owned by Google, to make similar changes to those it announced Wednesday.

It said in its online post that 30 per cent of the settlement will only be released if YouTube and TikTok implement daily and nighttime restrictions and age assurance measures, and also pay an amount matching that 30 per cent figure. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2026.

— With files from The Associated Press