In the second round of a historic trial, a New Mexico court ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to redress injuries to young people from their platforms.
In a decision made late on Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid stated that the majority of the funds, $420 million, will be utilized for youth treatment services.
Over the next five years, the remaining funds will be used for screening services, awareness and prevention, and other expenses.
The additional fine is on top of the $375 million in civil penalties that jurors imposed on Meta in March after finding that the business had intentionally damaged children’s mental health and had suppressed information about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
In the second step, prosecutors requested that the judge impose significant modifications at Meta with the goal of limiting addictive elements, enhancing age verification, and avoiding child sexual exploitation through stricter oversight and default privacy settings.
The $942 million sum that Meta is accountable for is a tiny portion of their yearly profit, which was almost $60 billion in 2025.
In Thursday’s after-hours trading, Meta’s shares fell less than half a percent to $589.44 as investors appeared to ignore the New Mexico judgment.
Nevertheless, the decision is yet another blow for Meta, which is dealing with a deluge of lawsuits from thousands of families whose children have been damaged by social media.
It makes it clear that businesses will be held responsible when their product designs intentionally endanger children, according to New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
In a statement, he added, “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.”
Meta promised to file an appeal.
In a statement, the business added, “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.”
“We will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
Meta’s platforms may change in appearance.
The judge mandated that Facebook and Instagram create and regularly display banners and instructional screens that clearly describe their security features, best practices, and options to deal with offensive comments, for example.
The state of New Mexico would consider those modifications, as well as an information campaign.
The court stated that Meta is prohibited from using age-verification technologies on minors younger than 13 by federal children’s privacy legislation.
According to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, Meta cannot mandate that minors provide personal information or be passively monitored online, not even for age verification.
Additionally, the court stated that it would be “inequitable and unduly injurious” to require children’s ages to be verified just for Meta and not for other social media platforms.
Rather, the court mandated that Meta keep enhancing its age-assurance systems in New Mexico, which include employing artificial intelligence to ascertain an individual’s age based on cues like the identities of their friends and the kinds of content they upload and view.
Within the following two years, Meta must also try to create a specific “under-13-years-of-age prediction model.”
Additionally, Meta needs to ask Facebook and Instagram users in New Mexico who are estimated to be younger than 13 to provide evidence of age.
Meta must treat a user as under 13 or under 18 until they confirm their age if it determines that they are under 13 or under 18 but is unable to estimate their exact age.
Additionally, the business must collaborate with educational institutions or a child safety group to develop a reporting site that allows school personnel to detect users who might be younger than 13.
Additionally, it must remove any personal data it has gathered about users who are younger than 13. Additionally, the court mandated that Meta report on its compliance with the abatement measures twice a year.
In the midst of numerous cases, Meta is preparing for a trial this month in California.
Additionally, Meta is preparing for a trial in federal court in Oakland, California, later this month.
In this case, Meta will be sued by the first four of 29 states in a federal multi-district lawsuit that was filed in 2023.
The lawsuit alleges that Meta intentionally created features on Facebook and Instagram that encourage youngsters to become addicted to its platforms, thereby contributing to the teenage mental health epidemic.
Lawsuits were filed in state courts in eight jurisdictions, including Tennessee, where a trial is presently underway.
Additionally, the families of four teens who committed suicide late last month filed a lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google’s YouTube due to what they claim were “years of escalating harms” from utilizing their services that ultimately led to their deaths.
According to Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who specializes in social media and cybersecurity, what emerges from New Mexico is the first of many dominoes that will fall for Meta.
Edelson declared, “America is not going to pass a law that bans social media.” “But the states are finally finding a way to rein this in if companies like Meta are aware that their product design is harming users.”
