Meta’s Settlement Should Help Heal the Harm It Caused

The $17.1 billion Meta settlement presents Ohio with a critical opportunity to address the harm social media can cause to young people’s mental health. In a co-authored opinion piece, Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation CEO Tony Coder and Peg’s Foundation CEO Rick Kellar make the case for dedicating Ohio’s share of the settlement to youth mental health and suicide prevention, ensuring these funds support meaningful, lasting change for young people across the state.

For years, parents, teachers, and counselors across Ohio watched something change in our kids. Sleep disappeared into late-night scrolling. Comparison replaced confidence. Bullying followed children home and into their bedrooms. Many of us suspected the platforms were part of the problem. Now we have something close to an admission.

In August, Meta agreed to a $17.1 billion settlement with nearly every state attorney general, resolving claims that it designed Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, exposed them to serious mental harm, and misled the public about the risks. Ohio is expected to receive more than $319 million over the next decade, and Attorney General Andy Wilson has said his office will work with the General Assembly on how that money is spent.

That conversation should start with a simple principle: settlement dollars should repair the harm that produced them. The harm here is to the mental health of our young people. The money should go to mental health and suicide prevention.

Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death for young Ohioans. Behind every number is a family, a classroom, a team, and a community changed forever. And behind many of those losses were warning signs — withdrawal, hopelessness, isolation — that the right person, trained and present at the right moment, might have caught.

Ohio already knows what works. We have a statewide suicide prevention plan. We have the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. We have school-based programs that teach students and staff to recognize warning signs and connect peers to help. We have mobile crisis teams, county prevention coalitions, and clinicians who want to serve kids but are stretched thin. What we lack is sustained, predictable funding to bring these efforts to every corner of Ohio, from Cleveland to Gallipolis.

Private philanthropy has tried to help close that gap. Foundations across Ohio, including Peg’s Foundation, have invested for years in crisis response, the behavioral health workforce, and access to care. But grants are not designed to carry a statewide system. Pilot programs end when the grant does, and promising work too often stalls just as it begins to prove itself. Settlement dollars committed over a decade give Ohio a rare chance to turn what works into something permanent, and to build a model the rest of the nation can follow.

We have walked this road before. When Ohio negotiated its opioid settlements, state and local leaders came together through OneOhio to make sure the money went to prevention, treatment, and recovery rather than disappearing into general budgets. That decision is funding lifesaving work across the state today. We should apply the same discipline here.

We urge lawmakers to dedicate Ohio’s share of the Meta settlement to youth mental health and suicide prevention: school-based prevention and early intervention, 988 and crisis response services, expanded access to child and adolescent mental health care, and training for parents, coaches, and educators. The funds should be distributed transparently, with outcomes measured and reported to the public.

The settlement also requires changes to the platforms themselves, including daily time limits, nighttime restrictions, and stronger safeguards against content that promotes suicide and self-harm. Those reforms matter. But they look forward. The young people already struggling need help now.

Meta’s payment is not a windfall. It is compensation for damage done to a generation. Let’s spend it on that generation, and on the ones coming after.