TOPEKA – Kansas has taken new steps this year to protect children online and strengthen accountability for platforms and offenders, even as the State Child Death Review Board’s 2026 Annual Report underscores the continued need for prevention and early intervention.

The Board’s report, which examines deaths of Kansas children from birth through age 17, provides additional context for those efforts. It found that 31 children died by suicide in 2024, compared with 24 in 2023, for a rate of 4.5 deaths per 100,000 children, above the national rate of 2.1. Over the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, 130 Kansas children died by suicide.

Among the circumstances the Board identified in those deaths:

• 54% had communicated suicidal thoughts or intentions beforehand.
• 39% experienced a known crisis within 30 days of their death.
• 18% faced issues or barriers to mental health services.
• 12% had experienced bullying, including four cases involving cyberbullying.

“Behind every number in this report is a child whose life ended too soon, leaving family, friends and an entire community forever changed,” said Sara Hortenstine, the Board’s executive director. “While we cannot change what has happened, we can honor the lives lost by learning from them. My hope is that those lessons continue to shape how we protect children and help make Kansas a safer place for every child.”

The Board emphasized that youth suicide often involves multiple contributing circumstances. However, the findings point to the value of recognizing warning signs, responding during periods of crisis, and addressing barriers to care, including risks that can arise through online interactions.

Recognizing that online safety is one part of the broader effort to protect children, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office has taken additional steps to address online exploitation and strengthen protections for minors as technology continues to change how children communicate and interact.

In April 2026, Caleb’s Law was signed into law, expanding Kansas’ sexual extortion statute and strengthening criminal penalties in certain cases involving minors and dependent adults. Named in memory of Caleb Moore, a 14-year-old from El Dorado who died by suicide after being targeted in an online sextortion scheme, the law creates the offenses of aggravated sexual extortion causing great bodily harm and aggravated sexual extortion causing death. It also requires the Attorney General’s Office to prepare educational materials on sexual extortion and to work with the State Board of Education and law enforcement to inform schools, students, parents and guardians, and the public.

In August, Attorney General Kris Kobach announced Kansas’s participation in a multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc., requiring new child-safety measures on Instagram and Facebook. The agreement includes stronger age-verification measures, parental controls, daily usage limits, nighttime restrictions, and additional safeguards addressing bullying and content related to suicide and self-harm.

Kobach also announced a $9.8 million settlement with Roblox, intended to raise the standard for platforms that market to children. Roblox will underwrite a $500,000, three-year multimedia public-awareness campaign on online child safety designed to reach a Kansas audience. Roblox has also agreed to implement or continue safety measures that include age-assurance so users see only age-appropriate content and chat features; expanded parental controls; protections that limit chat between users under 18 and unknown adults; and stronger chat-moderation tools to prevent off-platforming.

“Children should be able to navigate the digital world without becoming targets of exploitation or abuse,” Kobach said. “Through Caleb’s Law and our efforts to hold companies like Meta and Roblox accountable, we are working to protect Kansas children from online threats, strengthen accountability, and give parents additional tools to keep their children safe.”

Overall, the report found that 387 Kansas children died in 2024, compared with 360 in 2023. The state’s overall child mortality rate remained above the national average.

The State Child Death Review Board is a multidisciplinary, multi-agency volunteer board organized by law within the Attorney General’s Office to examine trends and patterns that identify risk factors in the deaths of children from birth through age 17. The 2026 Annual Report is available at ag.ks.gov/scdrb.

Individuals experiencing a mental health crisis or suicidal thoughts can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

TOPEKA – (August 26, 2026) – Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach today announced a landmark $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc.—one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history outside of the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. In addition to the payment, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. The agreement resolves claims by 47 states and D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that the company designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things. This settlement is a monumental victory for the protection of America’s children and will fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens. Under the settlement, Kansas will receive more than $134 million.

“This landmark $17.1 billion settlement is the largest Big Tech accountability victory in history and a monumental win for the children of Kansas and America. For too long, Meta deliberately designed Instagram and Facebook with addictive features that preyed on kids’ developing brains, exposed them to serious mental-health harms, and then misled parents about the dangers,” Kobach said.

Kobach also acknowledged that this problem extends well beyond one company and credited Meta for being the first major platform to reach a comprehensive resolution on youth safety.

“Today’s agreement forces Meta to implement the strongest child-safety reforms ever required of any social-media company—hard daily time limits, nighttime and school-hour restrictions, robust age verification, and real parental controls—while delivering more than $134 million directly to Kansas. This settlement marks a down payment on an industry-wide transformation that will finally prioritize our children’s well-being over corporate profits,” Kobach said.

The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:

• Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
• Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
• Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.
• Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
• Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
• Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
• Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.

These are groundbreaking changes to Instagram and Facebook and more significant and comprehensive than previously ordered by any court. Most importantly, this settlement represents a down payment toward an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.

Beginning in 2021, nearly every attorney general in the country cooperated to investigate the social media industry for designing and promoting platforms to children and teens despite known harms. After a bipartisan, nationwide investigation found that Meta designed Instagram’s features to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, 47 attorneys general sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit. This settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. The settlement also resolves the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election. Kansas will receive an additional $6 million for these claims, pending court approval.

Assistant Attorney General Sarah Dietz prosecuted the case for Kansas.

In addition to Kobach, the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.