A New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to pay $567 million to address harms caused to young people on its platforms. The ruling, which comes after the second phase of a landmark trial, mandates that the majority of the funds be used for treatment services for youth.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid stipulated that $420 million will support treatment services, with the remainder allocated to awareness and prevention programs, screening services, and other costs over the next five years. This new penalty is in addition to the $375 million in civil penalties jurors imposed in March, after finding that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed information regarding child sexual exploitation on its services.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez stated that the decision holds companies accountable when their product designs 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," Torrez said in a statement.
Meta has announced its intention 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."
The court has also ordered changes to Meta's platforms, requiring Facebook and Instagram to implement banner and informational screens that clearly explain protection features and best practices for addressing inappropriate comments. These features and an educational campaign in New Mexico will be subject to state review.
Due to federal children's privacy laws, the court cannot compel Meta to apply age-verification tools to children under 13. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prevents the company from requiring children to submit personal data or be passively tracked online for age verification. The court noted that imposing age verification solely on Meta would be inequitable.
Instead, Meta must continue to improve its age assurance tools in New Mexico, utilizing artificial intelligence to estimate users' ages based on factors like friend networks and content consumption. The company is also tasked with developing a dedicated "under-13-years-of-age prediction model" within two years. Meta will be required to request age verification for users in New Mexico estimated to be under 13 and will treat users as under 13 or 18 until their age is verified if it cannot estimate a specific age.
Furthermore, Meta is required to partner with schools or a child safety organization to create a portal for school staff to flag users potentially under 13 and must delete personal information collected from users under 13. The company must also submit progress reports on compliance with these measures twice a year.
This New Mexico ruling occurs as Meta faces additional legal challenges. The company is preparing for a trial later this month in federal court in Oakland, California, where it will confront the first of 29 states suing it for allegedly contributing to the youth mental health crisis through addictive features on Instagram and Facebook. Additionally, Meta, along with TikTok, Snap, and Google's YouTube, were recently sued by families of teenagers who died by suicide, alleging severe harms from platform use.
This recent judgment is seen by experts as a potential precursor to further legal actions against Meta and other social media companies. Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University specializing in social media and cybersecurity, commented that while a federal ban on social media is unlikely, states are finding avenues to regulate companies whose product designs are found to cause harm.
The total financial responsibility for Meta in this case, $942 million, represents a small portion of its annual profit. The company's stock saw a minimal decrease in after-hours trading following the New Mexico ruling.