The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that kids under 18 will soon see changes to their Instagram and Facebook experiences due to a historic $18-billion (U.S.) settlement, which will be paid out over a decade, Meta reached with 48 U.S. states. An Associated Press dispatch to The Globe reports that Meta's new safeguards will apply only in the United States for 10 years. The proposed settlement includes strengthening age-checking technology, using both in-house and third-party tools, and regular audits. It aims to reduce false positives for minors identified as over 18. If a user under 13 is removed, Meta will also check their friends' ages. Federal child privacy law requires users to be at least 13 to create an account, but Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, testified last week that Meta took a "don't ask, don't tell" approach. "Meta has one of the most sophisticated infrastructures in the world to detect fake accounts," he said, but Meta had "no goals, no metrics" to detect and check the ages of kids suspected to be under 13. Some researchers have found that many past protections Meta has rolled out are ineffective or don't work as advertised. Some safety features will be on by default.