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Snap's Spiegel says firm open to teen time limits but stops short of committing to Meta-style deal
Meta wants rivals to copy the product changes it agreed to with most US state attorneys general, and Snap's Evan Spiegel told the BBC a default daily cap for teens is something his company would implement. He did not say when.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Snapchat boss Evan Spiegel told the BBC that a maximum daily time for young users is something Snap would be willing to implement, and called it a possible step forward for the industry.
- Attorneys General for most US states had alleged that Meta deliberately designed Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to young users.
- Meta has been pressing other social media companies to adopt the same changes, and a spokesperson said last month that it was hopeful Snap would make similar ones.
- On timing, Spiegel said only that the company wants to figure out how it can be part of the solution.
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Why it matters
- precedent The next executive launching anything aimed at teenagers will be asked the question Spiegel was asked, and saying the company has discussed it internally is now the floor for an acceptable answer.
- cost Meta's extra $5.3bn is paid or withheld on decisions made at YouTube and TikTok, neither of which Meta controls.
- decision Google and TikTok now pick between shipping terms they never signed and explaining, repeatedly and on the record, why they have not.
- constraint Stated willingness with no date leaves parents and schools with the product they had last week, and the only check on it is what appears in Snap's release notes.
A 15-year-old opens Snapchat after dinner and hits minute 120 [3]. Someone on a product team has to decide what happens next: whether the app locks, whether a parent can grant another half hour from their own phone, and whether the clock resets at midnight in the teen's timezone or the account's. Meta's settlement sets a default two-hour daily limit for teen users across its platforms, along with muted notifications during school hours and blocks at night [7]. The BBC's account does not say who can lift the cap.
What Snap ships today is Family Center, which Spiegel said lets parents track aspects of how their teens use Snapchat [14]. That reports usage to a parent. A default cap has to stop it, and stopping it needs an age signal the company trusts, a timezone, a reset moment and a rule for overrides.
Meta agreed to pay $12.7bn over a 10-year period [7][10], an average of about $1.27bn a year [1]. It also said it would implement even more stringent time limits and pay an additional $5.3bn if YouTube and TikTok follow suit [9], taking the total to $18bn [2]. Google, which owns YouTube, told the BBC it had no comment when asked whether it planned to implement the measures in Meta's settlement, and TikTok did not respond to the BBC's request for comment [13].
Spiegel put it as a matter of norms. "I think it is an important step forward in the industry in terms of really identifying industry norms, and I think that would be beneficial overall," he told the BBC, adding: "We've looked really thoughtfully at the terms" [3][4]. On timing he said Snap had discussed it internally: "I don't have more to share today" [5][6]. He was speaking at Snap's California headquarters as the company revealed features for Specs, its smart glasses, retailing at $2,195 in the US [16][17].
Night-time blocks and school-hours muting survive a wrong guess about a user's age: the worst case is a quiet phone. A wrong guess on a default two-hour cap either locks an adult out of their own account or leaves a 14-year-old uncapped, so it is the item that waits on age assurance. Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap are all facing litigation alleging their apps helped spawn a youth mental health crisis, and Snap has also been accused of facilitating illegal drug sales [18].
What to watch
- Whether Snap attaches a date, or a build, to Spiegel's stated willingness at its next product update.
- Whether Google or TikTok answers on the record after Spiegel's comments, having both declined to engage with the BBC.
- Whether state attorneys general press Snap for the same terms its chief executive says he would accept.