Meta to New Mexico: Regulate Us Too Hard, and We Might Leave Entirely

Meta warned that it may remove access to its platforms for users in New Mexico entirely if it cannot reach a workable solution to sweeping restrictions sought by Attorney General Raúl Torrez, Fortune reports. Torrez filed for injunctive relief on April 30 that would redefine how Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp operate for children and teens in the state. “Meta is showing the world how little it cares about child safety,” Torrez said, according to Fortune.

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2023 covert operation in which state Department of Justice investigators used a decoy account posing as a 13-year-old girl, which was quickly flooded with sexually explicit messages from adult men. In March, a Santa Fe jury held Meta liable for 75,000 violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act and ordered it to pay $375 million in civil penalties, the maximum allowed under state law.

The state sought the new restrictions in a bench trial set to begin May 4 before Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid. Its proposals included mandatory age verification, removing children under 13, linking every minor’s account to a parent or guardian, blocking adults from messaging minors unless directly connected, disabling end-to-end encryption for users under 18, and a court-appointed Child Safety Monitor funded by Meta for at least five years.

Meta called the demands technically impractical and impossible for any company to meet. Torrez rejected that, saying the company has redesigned its products and even bent to the demands of dictators to preserve market access, and he called the threat to leave a “PR stunt.”

Editor’s note: Updated Oct. 31, 2026. This story is now part of Daily Reports, our New Mexico news roundup, and was revised to credit Fortune’s original reporting. Learn how Daily Reports works in our editorial standards.