In today’s Digest, we discuss Meta agreeing to pay up to USD$18bn (£13.5bn) and restrict teen access under a sweeping state settlement, X revamping its creator pay with a new rewards programme, and MiniMax posting a 283% revenue surge, though its pace still trails full-year targets. 

Meta faces up to $18bn teen safety settlement

Meta has reached an agreement with 29 US states to pay as much as USD$18bn (£13.5bn) over the next decade and impose strict new limits on how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram, resolving claims that the company deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive to children. The settlements bring an end to a federal trial examining allegations that Meta's products harmed young users and that the company misled the public about the risks. Four states, California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, had been expected to pursue civil penalties approaching USD$200bn (£150bn), making the negotiated outcome a significant departure from what courts might otherwise have ordered.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the case was focused squarely on protecting children, calling the relief secured in the settlement "very meaningful and well beyond what any court has ordered or is likely to order."

X revamps creator pay with new rewards program

X is preparing to launch a revamped creator monetisation scheme called the Original Content Rewards Programme on 8th September , designed to compensate creators for producing original, high-quality work rather than simply chasing engagement metrics. SpaceXAI executives describe this as the "year of the creator," framing the new programme as a deliberate push to win over creator talent.

Allegra Jacchia creator product lead at SpaceXAI said the intent is to reward creators bringing genuinely new ideas rather than volume for its own sake, a shift away from X's current revenue share model.

MiniMax revenue jumps 283% as full-year goals loom 

MiniMax reported a 283% year-on-year jump in first-half revenue to USD$116.6m (£87.2m), though the growth rate remains insufficient to hit analysts' full-year projections. The six-month total represents about 32% of the USD$363.77m (£272.8m) analysts expect for all of 2026, according to Bloomberg estimates, following the company's full-year 2025 revenue of USD$79m(£59.3m). 

Much of the growth stemmed from MiniMax's Open Platform and other enterprise-facing AI services, which surged more than 703% year-on-year to USD$73.9m (£55.4m) from USD$9.2m (£6.9m), now accounting for 63.4% of total revenue compared to just 30.3% a year earlier, a shift MiniMax attributed to growth in paying users and enterprise clients. Revenue from its other AI-native products also doubled over the period.