Meta’s Filter Settlement Doesn’t Ban All Effects. States Must Decide Which Ones Count.
The August agreement between Meta and 47 U.S. states—plus Washington, D.C., and three territories—does not impose a blanket ban on all digital effects. State attorneys general are nearing the end of a two-month window they set to send Meta a letter on what counts as a bannable filter and what does not.
The settlement turns on the phrase “cosmetic procedure filter,” and legal experts warn that individual states may struggle to agree on what does and does not fit that category. A rule can be national in scope and still fragment at the point of interpretation.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The hard part is not banning filters; it is writing a definition that many states can live with. “Cosmetic procedure filter” sounds precise until it has to be applied.
Maybe the narrower scope is a feature. The agreement never imposed a blanket ban on all digital effects, so a rule that stops short of defining beauty for everyone may be more workable than it looks.