Meta faces $942m child-safety bill in New Mexico

Meta has been ordered to bear costs totalling $942 million in New Mexico after a judge found that Facebook and Instagram contributed to a public nuisance involving harm to children, adding sweeping safeguards for young users as the company prepares for a potentially far larger legal battle in California.

Judge Bryan Biedscheid of the First Judicial District Court directed Meta to place $567 million into a five-year abatement fund, on top of $375 million in civil penalties imposed following an earlier jury verdict. The fund is intended to address mental-health and safety problems associated with social-media use among young people in the state.

The ruling significantly raises the stakes for Meta as US authorities increasingly challenge the design and marketing of social-media platforms rather than focusing solely on individual pieces of harmful content. Meta has said it disagrees with the New Mexico decision and intends to appeal.

Of the new $567 million fund, $420 million is earmarked for treatment services. Another $90 million will support screening and assessment, $33 million will finance awareness and prevention programmes, $15 million will go towards referrals and coordination, and $9 million will cover implementation and evaluation.

The case began with allegations that Meta failed to disclose adequately the risks faced by young users and exposed children to dangers including psychological harm and sexual exploitation. A jury concluded that the company had committed 75,000 violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, imposing the maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation and producing the $375 million civil award.

Biedscheid subsequently found that Meta’s conduct had helped create an ongoing public nuisance requiring remedies beyond financial penalties. The court concluded that federal protections under Section 230, which generally shield internet platforms from liability for content supplied by third parties, did not bar New Mexico’s public-nuisance claim.

The order also requires major changes for Facebook and Instagram users under 18 in New Mexico. Teen use of the two platforms must be limited to a combined 90 hours each month. Push notifications must generally be disabled between 10pm and 7am, as well as between 8am and 3pm on school days. “Like” counts must be hidden by default unless a parent or guardian permits the setting to be changed.

Teen accounts on Instagram must remain private by default, while Facebook accounts belonging to minors must have restricted connection settings. Meta cannot recommend accounts belonging to users under 18 to unconnected adults, and adults who are not connected to a minor will be prevented from messaging that user. Changes to default safety protections generally require parental approval.

Artificial-intelligence services are covered as well. Meta must prevent users under 18 in New Mexico from engaging in romantic or sexualised interactions with its AI chatbots. Adult users must also be prevented from using the chatbots to simulate sexual or romantic interactions involving minors.

The court stopped short of ordering fundamental changes to recommendation algorithms, autoplay or infinite scrolling. Biedscheid found that directly regulating those features could create constitutional and Section 230 problems and could place Meta at a competitive disadvantage when rival platforms were not parties to the case.

The financial exposure confronting Meta could soon become dramatically larger. An August 12 federal trial in Oakland, California, forms part of sprawling litigation brought by states alleging that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to encourage compulsive use among children while safety risks were inadequately disclosed.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking penalties that Meta says could reach about $1.4 trillion. The calculation is based on alleged violations multiplied by statutory penalties available under state consumer-protection laws. Meta has argued that the figure is unsupported and without precedent in consumer-protection enforcement.

The wider litigation involves claims from dozens of states as well as thousands of cases brought by individuals, families and school districts. Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat have faced allegations that engagement-driven features contributed to depression, eating disorders, self-harm and other difficulties among young users, although the companies have contested both the causal claims and attempts to characterise ordinary platform use as addiction.

A Los Angeles jury in March provided another significant test when it found Meta and YouTube liable in a case brought by a young woman who said their platforms contributed to serious mental-health problems after she began using social media as a child. The jury awarded $6 million, with Meta responsible for $4.2 million and Google for $1.8 million.