Global attention has focused on Meta's $17.1 billion settlement with a California court, which acknowledges the company's role in damaging children's mental health. The agreement has prompted worldwide discussion about Big Tech's power, corporate accountability, youth engagement with social platforms, and addiction risks. Many observers have drawn parallels to the tobacco industry's reckoning.
Yet the prevailing commentary largely overlooks a critical dimension: how child rights and corporate human rights obligations should frame this case. Examining the settlement through the lens of children's rights and company duties to safeguard those rights is essential not only for grasping what the settlement means but for determining what steps must follow—across all platforms and all nations—to shield young users globally.
Human and child rights function as universal benchmarks applicable to all societies, states, and organizations. They provide an internationally established foundation for shaping corporate conduct, one that transcends the variability of ethics frameworks, democratic principles, safety concepts, or court-ordered settlements in different legal systems.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child stands as the most widely embraced human rights instrument ever created; notably, the United States alone has declined to ratify it. Drafted over 30 years ago, before the digital revolution, the convention's emphasis on children's entitlement to health and "appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being" remains strikingly pertinent today.
Thinking about how corporations should integrate respect for human rights into their operations has matured substantially over two decades. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) span all sectors and establish a definitive international framework for preventing and remedying human rights violations stemming from, contributing to, or connected with commercial conduct.
For social media and digital platforms, the UNGPs set binding standards that should and must direct company behavior regarding child user protections. Beyond defining what companies must do, the UNGPs also spell out what governments must accomplish: establishing and enforcing rules that hold companies accountable to their duty to protect children.
What a business and human rights lens reveals about the Meta case
Adopting this framework carries several vital consequences. Most fundamentally, children's rights are not bound by geography or citizenship. A child rights approach enables questioning what corporations owe to children as rights-bearers everywhere, not just in their home countries. Although this settlement addresses only US children, corporate safeguards for child rights must span the globe.
Permitting companies to acknowledge worldwide harm to children while addressing it only domestically represents a moral failure. As Nighat Dad of the Meta Oversight Board states, "The settlement Meta signed protects teenagers in participating US states. The exclusion of everywhere else is a choice. Meta can make a different one."
Second, responsibility must extend beyond Meta alone. All relevant companies must recognize the issues highlighted by this settlement and the documented injuries to children and users. Every social media platform should declare its commitment to child protections through formal human rights policies explicitly referencing the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNGPs.
While Meta's call for peer companies to strengthen child safeguards is reasonable, its requirement that 30 percent of settlement funds depend on YouTube and TikTok taking action is incompatible with child rights principles.
Companies cannot make their human rights duties contingent on competitors' behavior. A firm's obligation to uphold human rights cannot hinge on whether rivals meet the same standard.
Third, the settlement exposes the inadequacy of voluntary human rights pledges. Meta adopted a human rights policy in 2021 that explicitly committed to the UNGPs and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This commitment failed to prevent the harms now being litigated and settled. While voluntary due diligence remains valuable and worth promoting, it cannot substitute for binding regulatory frameworks and enforceable legal obligations.
Simultaneously, the settlement underscores how vital human rights due diligence is for forestalling or lessening injury. Many commitments Meta has pledged align with long-standing demands from experts and advocates. However, proposed new design features must undergo rigorous child rights due diligence before rollout to detect risks and prevent or reduce harm. The UNGPs mandate that companies treat human rights due diligence not as a post-launch compliance review but as an embedded process from conception through development, designed to avert damage before it occurs.
Every measure Meta proposes must be examined and evaluated through child rights principles and the core standards established by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: freedom from discrimination; prioritizing the child's best interests; guaranteeing life, survival, and development; and honoring children's perspectives alongside their developing capacity to form them.
Under the foundational principle of "know and show," companies must openly communicate to those who may face impact—children and parents—and other stakeholders, including shareholders, which risks they have identified and what actions they are implementing. Disclosure must match the scale of human rights concerns, reach intended recipients, and supply sufficient detail for stakeholders to judge whether the company's measures are sufficient.
Fifth, children must participate meaningfully in this work. Principle 18 of the UNGPs requires "meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders."
Child rights due diligence must include genuine engagement with children, parents, and guardians—particularly those at heightened risk, such as children with disabilities, LGBTQ+ youth, members of racial and religious minorities, and others worldwide.
Over the past two years, numerous tech company safety and trust divisions have faced severe budget reductions as organizations shifted resources toward artificial intelligence and aligned with the Trump administration's stance against rights protections and regulatory oversight.
In her 2025 report, Threats to Freedom of Expression Online in These Turbulent Times, Irene Khan, the former UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, observed that "most 'Big Tech' companies based in the United States have aligned their policies and positions with that of its Government, rolling back their promises of safety online."
For tech companies to honor their due diligence obligations seriously, engagement with children and families, openness, and continuous assessment require reassessment of staffing and expertise to guarantee the company possesses the resources to discharge its child rights duties.
A rights-based word of caution
Scrutinizing Big Tech has become fashionable and trendy. Legitimate grounds for criticism abound. This does not guarantee, however, that every proposed regulatory approach to tech companies aligns with human rights standards.
Whether Meta's settlement ultimately represents a pragmatic, profit-protecting maneuver or a genuine catalyst for meaningful reform remains uncertain. The answer hinges on whether human rights form the foundation of the response. Sustaining child rights as the organizing principle will prove essential to ensure that tech firms work to enable children to exercise their rights while shielding them from dangers and harms.
Source: Tech Policy Press
