US court orders Meta to pay $567 million over failure to protect children from social media harms

A New Mexico judge has ordered social media giant Meta to pay an additional $567 million for failing to adequately protect children from harms linked to its social media platforms, bringing the total penalties against the company in the case to $942 million.

Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that Meta’s platforms constituted a “public nuisance”, comparing the harm caused to children to pollution from a factory, ordering the company to place the latest penalty into a fund intended to reduce and treat the effects of social media-related harm.

The ruling follows an earlier $375 million verdict against Meta in the same case. Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, said it disagreed with the decision and would appeal.

“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,” a Meta spokesperson said.

The company said it remained confident in its record of protecting teenagers online and would continue to defend itself against claims that it said misrepresented the facts.

The case began with a 2023 lawsuit brought by New Mexico state attorneys, who alleged that Meta exposed children to sexually explicit material and enabled contact with sexual predators.

During the first phase of the trial, Meta was found to have repeatedly violated the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The court concluded that its recommendation algorithms steered young people towards harmful material and contacts.

In the latest ruling, Biedscheid said the effects extended beyond Meta’s platforms, creating broader social costs for children, families, schools, hospitals and law enforcement.
Of the $567 million ordered into the new fund, $420 million will finance clinical and behavioural health programmes aimed at addressing existing harms. Other funds will support awareness and prevention training for teachers and health professionals.

The judge also ordered Meta to introduce additional safeguards, including preventing adult accounts from being recommended to under-18 users and blocking adults from messaging minors.

Other measures include restricting the exchange of nudity by underage users, imposing a one-strike policy on adults involved in child sexual exploitation, removing like counts for users under 18 and limiting push notifications overnight and during school hours.

Meta must also impose a monthly usage limit of 90 cumulative hours across Instagram and Facebook for users under 18.