UP Argues the Social Media Industry Is Moving From Optional Safeguards Toward Safety by Design

WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Meta's agreement to pay up to $18 billion in aggregate settlements and make significant changes to Facebook and Instagram marks more than a legal turning point. According to UP, Inc., it marks the arrival of a new market category: Safe Social.

The settlement requires Meta to limit users under 18 to two hours per day across Facebook and Instagram, restrict overnight access, reduce notifications during school hours, strengthen age assurance and parental controls, limit visible "likes" and certain filters, and offer young users a non-algorithmic feed option. Several protections can become stricter if other major platforms adopt comparable terms.

The agreement came during Instagram President Adam Mosseri's testimony and before Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was expected to testify. Meta denied wrongdoing.

"This settlement validates what families have said for years: social media should not be designed to keep people scrolling at any cost," said Nick Rotola, founder and CEO of UP, Inc. "UP began with a more fundamental question: what if safety was not a setting, but the structure of the product?"

Meta has called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same framework. UP believes that pressure confirms that safer defaults are becoming an industry expectation, not a discretionary feature.

But UP argues that guardrails added to an engagement-centered platform are not the same as building a platform around safety from the beginning.

UP screens creators and brands before they can publish. Its standards exclude explicit, violent, hateful, substance-promoting, predatory, and manipulative material. UP does not allow unsolicited direct messages or open comments. Its Scroll Happy® system ranks video around how it may leave a viewer feeling, while mood-based feeds provide greater control.

"Meta is being required to add guardrails around an open, engagement-driven network," Rotola said. "UP vets who can publish, curates what enters the feed, removes unsolicited direct messages, and ranks content for how it leaves a person feeling. That is the difference between safety controls and safety by design."

The risk extends beyond screen time. A 2025 Thorn study found that one in five teens surveyed had experienced sextortion. TIME has also reported allegations concerning Meta's former enforcement thresholds and recommendations connecting potentially inappropriate adults with teens. Meta disputed those allegations.

"The press is calling this social media's tobacco moment. I see it as a millstone moment: a reckoning with what happens when products built to capture attention are allowed to shape children before they are ready to defend themselves," Rotola said. "The settlement matters. But a safer version of the same incentive system is not enough. Families deserve a real alternative."

UP calls that alternative Social with Standards.

UP is available as a free download for iPhone and Android. To learn more, visit www.ScrollHappy.com or download UP through the Apple App Store and Google Play.

About UP, Inc.

UP, Inc. is the company behind UP - Scroll Happy®, a social video platform built around vetted creators, curated content, safer interaction, and user well-being. UP gives people an alternative to doomscrolling through Social with Standards.

Media Contact
UP, Inc.
Nick Rotola
[email protected]
615-715-7267

SOURCE UP, Inc.