The $18 billion settlement between Meta and dozens of US states is not just about money. Beneath the fine print of the agreement are behavioural changes that Meta has to implement: a default two-hour daily screen-time cap for teens, stronger protections against adults contacting minors, faster response times to abuse reports, and a ten-year enforcement window overseen by the court.
Roughly a third of the payout is even tied to whether rivals like YouTube and TikTok fall in line with similar rules. In other words, American regulators didn’t just fine Meta — they rewrote parts of how the platform is allowed to operate.
India tells a very different story. Earlier this year, a BBC investigation found that Instagram’s recommendation system was pushing users towards child sexual abuse material, with paid ads reportedly slipping past Meta’s own filters and directing users towards illegally sold content elsewhere online. The Indian government was swift in its response, immediately summoning Meta officials, issuing a formal notice, and warning that the company could lose its “safe harbour” protection — the legal shield that normally keeps platforms from being held liable for what users post — if such violations continued.
But warnings aren’t enforcement. Unlike the US case, there’s no court-ordered settlement in India, no independently monitored decade-long compliance plan, and no financial penalty forcing Meta’s hand. What India has instead are closed-door meetings, MeitY briefings on how Meta’s algorithm decides what to show users, and public assurances from the company about “zero-tolerance” policies. Officials say they’ve seen “some action” since raising the issue, but there’s no external audit confirming how much has actually changed, and no compensation fund for affected families the way American states secured for youth safety programmes.
The imbalance is stark. In the US, lawsuits from attorneys general, school districts and grieving parents forced Meta into a legally binding rulebook. In India — one of Meta’s largest markets by user count — the same company faces stern letters and diplomatic-sounding warnings, with the algorithm’s design largely unexamined by any outside authority. Until India’s regulators can back their words with enforceable consequences, campaigners argue, Meta’s engagement will continue to look like damage control rather than reform.