A legal win against Meta may bring new reforms and hundreds of millions of dollars to the Commonwealth. But one state Senator who pushed for stricter reforms isn’t done fighting.
“I am glad to see this settlement, I’m glad to see the things that they have said they’re going to change," said Henrico County Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg after Virginia and other states agreed to a settlement with Meta over claims the social media giant caused harm to children. "That doesn’t mean there’s not more to do.”
Beyond the more than $350 million dollars coming to the Commonwealth, Meta says it’ll add new rules for minors on Facebook and Instagram. This includes age verification, daily time limits and quote “check in breaks” in an effort to dissuade endless scrolling. Many of the reforms align with changes demanded by Vanvalkenburg under a 2025 state law he authored.
But that law is currently on hold on First Amendment grounds, with a federal judge in Alexandria writing the state “does not have the legal authority to block minors’ access to constitutionally protected speech until their parents give their consent.”
Jones appealed and argued the lower court got it wrong because the law, "imposes only an incidental burden on speech."
"After completing the age verification, adults are free to access any speech on any social media platform for as long as they would like, and minors are free to access any speech on any platform for as long as their parents would like," Jones' filing reads.
The Richmond-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and kept the law on hold in an order issued Monday.
The 2025 law also goes further than the settlement; for example, Vanvalkenburg wanted 1-hour limits, Meta said they’d limit teens to 2. The Senator wants the state to keep fighting to defend his law, and AG Jones said he plans to.
“The Meta settlement is a huge win, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time," Jones said in a voice memo sent to Radio IQ. "And just as we did with Meta, we intend to prevail.”
