Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told the BBC the company would be “willing to implement” default time limits for teenage users, responding to pressure from Meta following its child safety settlement with U.S. state attorneys general.

Spiegel called such a measure “an important step forward for the industry” in an interview at Snap’s California headquarters, but did not commit to a timeline. “That’s something we’ve talked about internally,” he said. “I don’t have more to share today.”

The comments follow Meta’s $16.7 billion settlement with a coalition of 29 state attorneys general, approved in court filings released in late August, which requires the company to implement daily usage limits and nighttime blocks for teen users, add age-assurance measures, and build additional parental tools. Meta has said it would pay an additional $5.3 billion, split evenly, if YouTube and TikTok adopt comparable safeguards, including matching time limits and age-assurance tools.

Snap has already settled its own social media addiction lawsuit, reached in July ahead of a scheduled trial in Los Angeles, leaving Meta as the only major platform still facing trial over the child mental health allegations. Snap has separately faced accusations of facilitating illegal drug sales.

Spiegel pointed to Snap’s existing Family Center feature, which lets parents track aspects of their teens’ platform usage, as evidence the company already offers some tools in this area. “We want to figure out how we can be part of the solution,” he said.

Spiegel’s remarks came alongside Snap’s announcement of new features for its upcoming Specs glasses, which the company said will connect to Apple iPhone and Mac devices. The glasses use AI to offer recommendations based on a user’s goals, relationships and routines, a departure from the on-demand format of existing chatbots. Specs will retail at $2,195 in the U.S. and £1,995 in the UK, targeting early adopters, developers and enterprise customers rather than a mass consumer audience. 

The device follows Snap’s earlier Spectacles, whose short-lived launch a decade ago cost the company tens of millions of dollars, and enters a market where Meta’s own smart glasses have drawn scrutiny over covert recording, including cases where the recording indicator light was tampered with.

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