Meta Fined $567 Million in New Mexico Over Youth Harm
Court mandates significant platform changes and allocates funds for youth treatment and prevention services.
Callum Smith
Meta faces a $567 million fine in New Mexico for harming young people through Instagram and Facebook.
The New Mexico ruling allocates $420 million of new funds to youth treatment services. The remaining amount covers awareness, prevention, and screening costs over five years.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, must implement several court-mandated changes.
These changes include displaying informational screens about protection features, improving age assurance tools, and developing an "under-13-years-of-age prediction model" within two years.
The March trial was the first to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform.
The court also ordered Facebook and Instagram to build and display banner and informational screens explaining protection features and tools.
Additionally, Meta must introduce a mandatory usage limit of 90 cumulative hours per month for under-18s across Instagram and Facebook.
Accounts over 18 will be unable to message underage users. Underage accounts will not be recommended to adult users.
A 'one strike' policy will also be implemented for adults engaging in child sexual exploitation.
Meta must partner with schools or a child safety organization to create a reporting portal for flagging potential under-13 users.
The company is required to report on its progress twice a year on complying with these abatement measures.
These changes and an educational campaign in New Mexico will be subject to state review.
Critics of age assurance technologies highlight that many tools are flawed, capable of falsely identifying someone as older or younger depending on the data and method used for verification.
This landmark fine sends a powerful message that Meta’s cavalier approach to children’s safety and mental health has consequences, and that tech firms should rightly expect punitive sanctions if they continue to put profit before the safety of young people.
Andy Burrows stated, "This landmark fine sends a powerful message that Meta’s cavalier approach to children’s safety and mental health has consequences, and that tech firms should rightly expect punitive sanctions if they continue to put profit before the safety of young people."
Burrows also remarked, "This decision will be the first of many dominoes to fall and it offers real hope that the tide may be starting to turn after a decade in which Big Tech has been able to offer harmful products to children with relative impunity."
Ellen Roome commented, "This ruling is a big step in the global effort to end the uncontrolled experiment on our children."
Roome further explained, "A court has looked at how these platforms are built, at the way children are pushed towards harm by design, and concluded that the damage is so widespread that it must fine Meta nearly a billion dollars in one case alone."
The Molly Rose Foundation claims this stateside ruling will be the first of many dominoes to fall, with a wave of legal challenges being brought against tech firms.
Meta, whose annual profit in 2025 was around 60 billion dollars (£44.5 billion), stated, "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."