Meta has been ordered to pay a major $567m (£421m) fine to address harms to young people in the second part of a landmark case against the tech giant.
A New Mexico court in the United States imposed the penalty on Thursday, local time, with Judge Bryan Biedscheid saying the bulk of the money would be directed to treatment services for children and teens.
The case, which Meta lost in March, has already seen a jury levy $375m (£279m) in fines against the owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.
However, the second phase saw prosecutors ask the judge to require Meta to make substantive changes to its platforms, including taking steps to rein in addictive features, improve age verification and clamp down on child sexual exploitation.
The i Paper has contacted Meta for comment on the latest ruling, which could have a significant impact on broader efforts to impose greater transparency and accountability on social media companies across the globe.
The case so far
In 2023, attorneys for the State of New Mexico sued Meta, arguing the company should be held responsible for the way in which its platforms endangered children, including through exposure to sexually explicit material and sexual predators.
In the first phase of the landmark trial, a jury found Meta had repeatedly violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act through its recommendation algorithms, which “steered” young people toward harmful content.
Jurors concluded the company misled the public about the safety of its platforms for young users and a civil penalty of $375m (£279m) was imposed.
At the time, Meta said it disagreed with the verdict and would lodge an appeal.
In the trial’s second phase, prosecutors asked Judge Biedscheid to impose major changes on the company aimed at forcing it to rein in addictive features, improve age verification and clamp down on child sexual exploitation.
The judge did require some new measures, in addition to imposing a fresh fine, but also ruled some of prosecutors’ requests would be “inequitable and unduly injurious” if only applied to Meta’s platforms and not others.
What did the ruling say?
Judge Biedscheid was scathing in his assessment of Meta’s conduct and its impact on young people and society.
“Just as noxious pollution produced by the factory can harm the common public right to reasonably clean air, the harmful effects of Meta’s platforms on children do not stay contained by its platforms,” he wrote.
Social media harms had become a “common, societal burden on and harm to the affected children and their families and schools, as well as hospitals and law enforcement”, he added.
To address this, the judge ruled Meta must pay an additional $567m (£421m) fine, of which $420m (£312m) will be used for treatment services for young people.
The remainder is to be used to fund awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next five years.
In addition, Facebook and Instagram must build banners and informational screens which clearly explain protection features and display them regularly to users.
It must also eliminate “like” counts for users under 18, ban push notifications for those users every day between 10pm and 7am each day, ban push notifications during the typical school year between 8am and 3pm barring weekends, and introduce a mandatory usage limit for under-18s of 90 cumulative hours per month across Instagram and Facebook.
Going forward, no accounts belonging to users over the age of 18 will be able to message underage users, nor will underage accounts be recommended to adult users, and a “one strike” policy will be implemented for adults who engage in child sexual exploitation.
The judge also ordered a ban on sending and receiving nudity by underage accounts.
While the changes are substantial and likely to be welcomed by social media reform advocates, the issue of age verification may prompt concern.
The court found United States child privacy laws meant Meta was not able to apply age verification tools to children under 13, so it instead ordered the company to continue improving its age assurance tools in New Mexico.
This included developing an “under-13-years-of-age prediction model” in the next two years.
Meta was also instructed to require proof of age from Facebook and Instagram users it suspects are under 13 or 18.
It must treat users as being under 13 or 18 until they provide evidence of their age.
Critics of age assurance technologies have highlighted that many tools are flawed and can either falsely identify someone as older or younger than their age depending on the data and method used to perform the verification process.
How could it impact social media reforms?
If the ruling survives a probable appeal, the new requirements for Meta’s most widely used platforms could quickly spread beyond the US.
Australia and the UK have pressed ahead with bans on social media for some young people, but policy experts have highlighted complications in enforcing the measures.
Some critics have also argued bans risk driving children and teens toward smaller, even less regulated platforms, and that governments should instead seek to impose tough regulations on social media similar to those outlined in the New Mexico case.
Creating civil or criminal penalties for platforms found to have breached rules intended to combat child sexual exploitation, such as a ban on underage accounts sending or receiving content involving nudity, is likely to garner broad support, even if it could be difficult to monitor and enforce without greater transparency from tech companies.
Meta has been placed under a court order to report on its implementation of the new measures twice a year.
Using fines to mitigate the impact of social media harms on society may also lay the groundwork for similar efforts elsewhere as part of a broader push for accountability from platforms. However, governments could find it challenging to legislate.
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