- A US judge ordered Meta to pay a total of $942 million over child safety violations
- The court ruled that Meta’s platforms created risks for children and young users
- Meta said it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal
A court in the United States has ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million over claims that its social media platforms failed to adequately protect children, bringing the company’s total financial penalty in the New Mexico child safety case to $942 million.
Eko Hot Blog gathered that the ruling was delivered on Thursday by Judge Bryan Biedscheid of a New Mexico court, who held that Meta’s failure to warn users about the risks its platforms posed to children amounted to a public nuisance.
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The latest award comes on top of an earlier $375 million judgment against the company, making it the largest penalty imposed on Meta in relation to child safety concerns.
In his decision, the judge compared Meta’s operations to a factory, describing its social media services as the product and the psychological harm and sexual exploitation suffered by children as the “pollution” that must be addressed.
He ruled that the company should establish a fund to help reduce the long-term impact of those harms.
Reacting to the judgment, Meta said it would challenge the ruling on appeal.
A company spokesperson maintained that the tech giant had invested heavily in protecting users, particularly teenagers, and had been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing harmful content and bad actors from its platforms.
The case originated from a lawsuit filed in 2023 by the State of New Mexico, which accused Meta of exposing children to sexually explicit material and online predators through the design of its platforms and recommendation algorithms.
During the first phase of the trial, the court found that Meta’s algorithms repeatedly directed young users toward harmful content and contacts, violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act.
In the second phase, Judge Biedscheid concluded that the effects of those practices had become so widespread that they constituted a public nuisance affecting the wider public, not just individual users.
According to the ruling, a large portion of the newly ordered fund—about $420 million—will be used to finance mental health treatment and behavioural support programmes for children affected by social media harms.
Additional funding will support public awareness campaigns and specialised training for teachers, healthcare professionals and other groups involved in child protection.
The court also directed Meta to introduce stronger safety measures for users under 18, including preventing adults from contacting minors through direct messages, stopping accounts belonging to minors from being recommended to adults, blocking the exchange of nude images involving underage users and adopting a one-strike policy against adults involved in child sexual exploitation.
Other requirements include removing public “like” counts for users under 18, restricting push notifications during overnight hours and school periods, and introducing a monthly screen-time limit of 90 hours across Instagram and Facebook for underage users.
The New Mexico judgment is one of several legal challenges facing Meta over child safety. The company is also defending thousands of similar lawsuits across the United States, while another major case involving multiple state attorneys general is expected to begin in California next week.
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