Why America Isn’t Joining Countries Hitting Social Media Giants With Massive Child-Safety Fines
Countries including the U.K. and members of the European Union have moved faster in the past two years to penalize social media companies over child safety and youth privacy. In the U.S., where Meta, TikTok, Snap and X face mounting scrutiny, regulators still have fewer direct tools to issue the kind of headline-grabbing fines seen overseas.
Overseas fines are already landing on major platforms
On Oct. 17, 2024, the European Commission said it opened formal proceedings against TikTok under the Digital Services Act over risks tied to minors, including the platform’s design and age-assurance systems. That action did not itself impose a fine, but the DSA allows penalties of up to 6% of a company’s global annual turnover, according to the Commission. In the U.K., Ofcom gained new powers under the Online Safety Act in 2023, including authority to fine platforms up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue.
Europe has also issued major privacy penalties involving children’s data. In September 2023, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined TikTok €345 million over how it handled children’s personal data, and in 2022 it fined Instagram owner Meta €405 million in a case involving teen users’ data settings. Those cases were brought under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which allows fines as high as 4% of global revenue.
In the U.S., enforcement is real but it is split across agencies and states
The U.S. has brought cases, but not through one national child-safety regulator with broad fining power. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice announced a $170 million settlement with Google and YouTube over alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. In 2023, a coalition of 33 state attorneys general sued Meta, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a separate suit involving youth harm allegations against TikTok.
What is not yet in place is a single federal law that mirrors the EU’s DSA or the U.K.’s Online Safety Act. COPPA, enacted in 1998, focuses on children under 13 and data collection, not the broader platform-design issues now under debate. The FTC can seek penalties in some privacy matters, but its authority is narrower than Europe’s system, and Congress has not passed a comprehensive online child-safety law despite multiple proposals in 2024.
The biggest reason is the legal structure, not a lack of pressure
The core issue is that U.S. regulators work within older, narrower statutes. COPPA was written in 1998, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act dates to 1996, and neither law created a national online safety regulator for minors. Legal scholars and lawmakers from both parties have said for years that platform oversight in the U.S. is fragmented between the FTC, the Justice Department, state attorneys general and, in some cases, Congress itself.
For families and residents, that means pressure on social media companies in the U.S. is more likely to show up through lawsuits, settlements, age-design rules in individual states and product changes announced by platforms. In 2024, Meta expanded teen account restrictions on Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok continued rolling out family-pairing and screen-time tools, according to company statements. For now, the U.S. approach remains slower, more contested and more dependent on courts than the systems now operating in Europe and the U.K.
