Meta has been ordered to pay $567 million and make sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram after a New Mexico court found that the company’s platforms harmed young people and required stronger protections for minors. The award comes on top of a $375 million civil penalty imposed by a jury in March, bringing Meta’s financial liability in the New Mexico case to $942 million. The case is among the most significant legal challenges yet to Meta over the safety of children on its platforms.
Meta’s $942 Million Child-Safety
The ruling does not mean Meta has paid $942 million worldwide for child-safety failures. It is the combined financial liability from one New Mexico case. Other child-related penalties and lawsuits are separate.
What did the New Mexico jury find?
The New Mexico case was brought by Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
In March, a jury found Meta liable under the state’s Unfair Practices Act for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and for unconscionable practices involving children.
The jury found 37,500 willful violations involving unfair or deceptive practices and another 37,500 willful violationsinvolving unconscionable practices. At the maximum statutory penalty of $5,000 per violation, the total civil penalty was $375 million.
The second phase focused on remedies. Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to pay another $567 million, with much of the money directed toward treatment, prevention, screening and other programs addressing harms to young people.
The court also ordered five years of supervision and reforms affecting minors in New Mexico.
Those measures include stronger age-verification efforts, protections against sextortion and child sexual exploitation, restrictions on nude-image exchanges involving minors, limits on overnight notifications, stronger default privacy settings, time-use limits, risk disclosures and semiannual compliance reports.
Meta has said it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal.
How much has Meta paid over child protection?
There is no reliable worldwide lifetime figure showing how much Meta has paid specifically for failing to protect children since Facebook launched in 2004.
The reason is that Meta has faced many different types of regulatory and legal actions. Some concern children’s safety or privacy specifically; others involve broader privacy practices affecting millions of users.
The clearest child-specific financial penalties include:
New Mexico — $942 million. The combined $375 million jury penalty and $567 million court-ordered payment make the New Mexico case one of the largest financial judgments against Meta involving alleged harm to minors.
Ireland — €405 million. In 2022, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta Platforms Ireland €405 million over Instagram’s processing of children’s personal data. The investigation examined, among other things, the exposure of children’s email addresses or telephone numbers through business accounts and the public-by-default treatment of some accounts belonging to users ages 13 to 17.
The Irish regulator also ordered Meta to bring its processing into compliance with European data-protection law.
The $5 billion FTC settlement involving Facebook in 2019 should not be described as a child-safety fine. It concerned broader privacy practices and regulatory violations. Including the entire amount in a calculation of Meta’s child-safety bill would be misleading.
Who has sued Meta?
The United States has been the most important source of litigation against Meta over alleged harms to children.
In 2023, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general filed coordinated lawsuits alleging that Meta knowingly designed features that could addict children and teenagers and misled the public about the safety of its products.
New Mexico later took its case to trial and became the first state to win a trial verdict against a major technology company in a case centered on allegations that its products endangered children and misled consumers.
Meta continues to face additional lawsuits from states, families and other plaintiffs.
Outside the United States, European regulators have also targeted Meta over children’s privacy. Ireland has been particularly important because Meta’s European operations are based there.
Has Meta admitted the allegations?
Meta has not admitted the central allegations that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to harm children or knowingly deceived parents about the risks.
The company has, however, acknowledged specific enforcement problems and has repeatedly announced new child-safety measures.
That distinction is important. A company can acknowledge that a particular safety system failed without admitting the broader legal allegations made by prosecutors.
Meta now says it has extensive protections for teenagers, including Teen Accounts and parental supervision tools across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
In 2026, Meta consolidated parental supervision tools for supervised teens across those services through its Family Center.
What parents should watch as children grow up online
The New Mexico case does not mean parents should automatically keep children away from every social-media platform. It does mean that parents should not assume the platform’s default settings are sufficient protection.
1. Check the child’s age and account type
Facebook requires users to be at least 13 years old, although some jurisdictions have different minimum-age requirements. Meta says accounts belonging to children under 13 can be reported and removed.
For teenagers, Facebook has introduced Teen Accounts, which automatically apply more protective settings. Availability is being rolled out by location and account.
Parents should check whether their teenager has those protections rather than assuming they are active.
2. Look at who can contact your child
One of the most important questions is not simply what your child posts, but who can reach them.
Parents should regularly review friend lists, Messenger connections, followers and requests from people the child does not know offline.
Teen Account protections on Facebook limit who can contact teenagers, while Meta says its systems are designed to reduce unwanted contact.
An adult repeatedly attempting to move a conversation from public comments to private messages, requesting secrecy, asking for photographs or offering gifts should be treated as a serious warning sign.
3. Pay attention to requests for private images
Parents should make clear that a child should never feel obligated to send a photograph because someone online demands, threatens or pressures them.
Particular caution is warranted when someone asks for nude or sexual images, attempts to move a conversation to another platform, or threatens to publish material already received.
The New Mexico court specifically ordered stronger protections against sextortion and child sexual exploitation.
4. Monitor time, not just content
A child can be exposed to harmful effects without encountering obviously dangerous material.
Parents should watch for a pattern in which social media begins interfering with sleep, schoolwork, exercise, family relationships or offline friendships.
Facebook’s supervision tools allow parents to see how much time a supervised teenager spends on the service and set time limits.
5. Check privacy settings regularly
Privacy settings can change as platforms introduce new products and features.
Parents should periodically review who can see posts, who can contact the child, whether the profile is searchable and what information is publicly visible.
Do not rely on a one-time setup when a child first receives a phone.
6. Talk about algorithms and recommendations
Parents should ask children what they are seeing in their feeds, not only what they are posting.
Sudden changes in the type of recommended content can be useful signals that a child’s online environment has changed.
The objective should not be constant surveillance. A teenager should understand why certain content can be harmful and feel comfortable telling a parent when something disturbing appears.
7. Establish a rule for reporting problems
Children should know exactly what to do if someone threatens them, sends sexual material, attempts to meet them offline, impersonates someone they know or pressures them to keep an online relationship secret.
The safest rule is simple: do not negotiate with the person, preserve evidence, block or report the account when appropriate, and tell a trusted adult.
Parents should also know how to use the platform’s reporting tools before an emergency occurs.
Why the New Mexico ruling matters
The significance of the $942 million case goes beyond the size of the payment.
The court has imposed structural requirements on Meta’s products and placed the company under continuing supervision in New Mexico.
The case also gives other states a potential legal model for pursuing social-media companies over product design and alleged consumer-protection violations.
For parents, however, the practical lesson is more immediate.
Facebook and Instagram have added more parental controls and protections for teenagers, but those tools do not replace parental involvement. Meta itself describes its supervision system as a way for parents and guardians to support their teenagers’ experiences, rather than as a substitute for family oversight.
The New Mexico case now puts a price on the consequences of failing to adequately protect young users. For families, the more important question is what happens before another court has to decide the issue.
Meta policy
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