New Delhi: A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million in compensation and introduce stronger child-safety measures across its platforms after finding the company liable for harms linked to young users, according to news reports.
The latest order brought Meta’s total penalties in the case to $942 million. A jury had earlier ordered the Facebook and Instagram parent to pay $375 million in March.
The lawsuit was filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in 2023 and accused Meta of exposing children to sexually explicit material, solicitation and human trafficking through its platforms.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid in Santa Fe found Meta to be a “public nuisance” under state law. The court had earlier established that the company violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act through recommendation systems that directed young users towards harmful content.
The latest ruling followed a request in May for the court to decide whether Meta’s conduct also violated the state’s public nuisance law.
Meta disagreed with the decision and said it would appeal.
The company said it continued to invest in user safety and maintained that the case did not accurately represent its efforts to protect teenagers online. Meta also said identifying and removing harmful actors and content remained an ongoing challenge.
In his ruling, Biedscheid pointed to evidence of worsening mental health outcomes among young people in New Mexico, including increases in depressive episodes, eating disorders and suicide rates.
According to news reports, the judge concluded that problematic social media use contributed to these trends, particularly through platform features designed to increase user engagement.
He said Meta was not solely responsible for the youth mental health crisis but found that its platforms represented a significant contributing factor.
The judge compared the wider effects of harmful social media products to pollution generated by a factory, arguing that the consequences extended beyond individual users to families, schools, hospitals and law enforcement.
Beyond the financial penalty, the ruling directed Meta to introduce or maintain a series of safeguards across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The company was ordered to strengthen measures for teenage users and improve enforcement against children under 13 operating accounts on its platforms.
The court also directed Meta to prevent minors from engaging in romantic or sexualised interactions with the company’s artificial intelligence chatbots.
Around $420 million of the additional compensation will be directed towards community and family-based treatment programmes. Other funds will support prevention measures related to the harms identified in the case.
Torrez welcomed the ruling and described it as a potential framework for holding social media companies accountable for product designs that could harm children.
He argued that the decision went beyond financial damages by requiring changes to the way Meta’s products operate for younger users.
The New Mexico case formed part of broader legal scrutiny of social media companies in the US over the effects of their platforms on children and teenagers.
In a separate case in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable over claims that their social media platforms were designed in ways that encouraged addictive behaviour among children.
That case was brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff who alleged that social media addiction during childhood harmed her mental health.
Meta and Google were ordered to pay a combined $6 million in damages in that case. Both companies appealed against the decision.
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