A New Mexico court has ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to fund youth mental health treatment and prevention programs, resolving the second phase of a landmark trial against the social media giant.
In a ruling issued late Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered that $420 million of the payout be directed to treatment services for young people in New Mexico. The remaining $147 million will support awareness, prevention, screening, and assessment initiatives over the next five years.
The decision follows the trial’s first phase in March, where a jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed evidence of child sexual exploitation on its platforms. In total, the court has held Meta liable for $942 million in damages and abatement costs.
In his ruling, Judge Biedscheid deemed Meta’s platforms a “public nuisance” and compared the company to a factory whose product is advertising and content, and whose “pollution” is the resulting psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children.
In addition to the financial penalty, the court ordered Meta to implement platform modifications for users under 18 in New Mexico. These include default private settings, restricting minor friend connections to other minors, displaying educational banners explaining safety tools, and developing AI prediction models to identify users under age 13. However, the court declined to mandate strict age verification for under-13 users, citing federal limits under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the verdict, stating that the decision sends an unmistakable message that major tech companies will be held accountable when product designs knowingly endanger children.
Meta stated that it disagrees with the ruling and intends to appeal, maintaining that it has continually invested in teen safety tools and the removal of harmful content. The ruling comes as Meta faces thousands of similar lawsuits from states, school districts, and families across the United States.
