A US judge in New Mexico on Thursday ordered Meta to pay another $567 million over its failure to warn the public about the dangers its platforms posed to children.
A US judge in New Mexico on Thursday ordered Meta to pay another $567 million over its failure to warn the public about the dangers its platforms posed to children. The latest judgment marked the largest ruling against the company over child safety.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid, who was overseeing the case, said that the social media giant is a “public nuisance” akin to air pollution and that it must put the money in a fund aimed at reducing future harms. The ruling came in addition to $375 million in fines Meta was already ordered to pay in the case.
Judge Biedscheid went on to compare Meta to a factory, with advertising and content as its product and “the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children to be the pollution that must be abated”. While commenting on the earlier $375 million verdict against Meta in the case, the social networking giant had said it intended to appeal the ruling.
In the second phase, prosecutors asked the judge to impose fundamental changes at Meta aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.
Big blow for Meta
It is pertinent to note that the total amount Meta is responsible for — $942 million — is a small fraction of its annual profit, which was about $60 billion in 2025. Hence, investors seemed to shrug off the New Mexico ruling in after-hours trading Thursday, sending Meta’s stock down less than half a per cent to $589.44.
Still, the ruling is another setback for Meta, which faces an avalanche of lawsuits from thousands of families of children harmed by social media. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said it sends an unmistakable message that companies will be held accountable when their product designs knowingly put children at risk.
“Today’s decision is a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child and every child who deserves to grow up safer online,” he said in a statement. Meta has vowed to appeal the ruling.
“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content,” the company said in a statement. “We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
With inputs from the Associated Press.
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