Meta has been ordered to pay $567 million by a New Mexico court to address harms caused to young people through its Facebook and Instagram platforms, in the second phase of a landmark child safety lawsuit against the company.
In a ruling issued on Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid directed that $420 million be used to fund treatment services for children and teenagers affected by social media-related harms. The remaining amount will support awareness campaigns, prevention efforts, screening services and other related costs over the next five years, as per The Associated Press report.
Why Was Meta Ordered To Pay?
The ruling on Thursday follows the first phase of the trial in March, when a jury found that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram. Jurors imposed $375 million in civil penalties, making it the first trial to hold Meta liable for harms linked to activities on its platforms.
The lawsuit was filed in 2023 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez after an undercover investigation. Investigators created a fake Instagram profile posing as a 13-year-old girl and alleged that the account was quickly flooded with explicit images and messages from suspected child predators. The state argued that Meta's platforms had become "prime locations" for child sexual abuse, solicitation and trafficking.
During the second phase of the trial, prosecutors urged the court to require Meta to introduce major safety reforms, including limiting addictive platform features, strengthening age verification systems, enhancing default privacy settings for minors and increasing oversight to prevent child sexual exploitation.
However, the court declined to mandate broad age-verification measures. Judge Biedscheid noted that the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) restricts companies from collecting additional personal information from children under 13 for age verification purposes. The court also said requiring only Meta, and not other social media companies, to verify users' ages would be "inequitable and unduly injurious" to the company.
Although the judge did not order sweeping platform redesigns, the ruling requires Facebook and Instagram to introduce clearer banner and information screens explaining available child safety features, privacy protections, reporting tools and ways to address inappropriate content and comments.
Meta has not yet publicly commented on the latest ruling.
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