SANTA FE, NM – On August 5, Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the First Judicial District Court has now entered a final judgement against Meta Platforms, Inc.
In one of the most significant rulings ever issued against a social media company, the Court is ordering Meta to pay $567 million to address youth mental health crisis caused by the use of their social media platforms. They are also ordering Meta to impose sweeping, court-supervised reforms to Facebook and Instagram that will remain in effect for 5 years.
This will be in combination with the $375 million civil penalty that a jury already imposed against Meta earlier this year, making a total of $942 million in financial compensation.
This final judgement is following the previous two-phase trial before Judge Bryan Beidsheid: Phase 1 found Meta guilty of 75,000 violations of NM’s Unfair Practices Act, and imposed the max civil penalty allowed under law: Phase 2 ruled Meta’s platforms a public nuisance and rejected the company’s claim that Section 230 shielded it from liability for the products it knowingly created.
This final judgement is historic because it is the first time that a social media company can be sued, tried, and then held financially and structurally accountable for building products that endanger children. “Meta built products it knew would fuel addiction, deepen a youth mental health crisis, and expose children to sexual exploitation, then lied to parents and policymakers about the danger,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “Today, it pays for that choice.”
Court Ordered Changes
In addition to the financial award, the Court has ordered extensive changes to remain in effect for 5 years, some of which would take effect in New Mexico, as well as changes to the platforms themselves. These include:
- More rigorous age verification for NM users, with additional measures to accurately identify age (within the limits of federal law)
- Strengthening and maintaining protections for Teen Accounts (in NM)
- Funding a statewide education and public awareness campaign (in NM)
- Providing specialized training and resources for NM law enforcement investigating internet crimes against children
- Requiring enhanced protections against sextortion and child sexual exploitation (stronger safeguards for minors and tougher enforcement against offending adult accounts)
- Preventing minors from sending or receiving nude images that violate Meta policies
- Eliminating push-notifications for users under 18 during overnight hours
- Requiring default privacy protections for minors (including hiding public “like” counts)
- Imposing mandatory time-use limits for minors
- Requiring disclosures about the risks of using Meta’s platforms
- Requiring Meta to file semiannual public compliance reports with the Court documenting its progress implementing every aspect of the order
The Court did not mandate the kind of hard age-verification requirement the trial record showed was most needed, but made it clear that sweeping policy choices like that need to be made by legislative and executive branches.
Attorney General Torrez said that he intends to close that gap through legislation. He said he plans to begin with a comprehensive social media safety bill that would mandate age verification for platforms operating in New Mexico. After that, additional legislation would aim to broadly improve New Mexico consumer protection laws to reflect the scale and harm of the modern digital economy.
The New Mexico Attorney General is calling on Congress and legislatures nationwide to take action as well. Polling has shown that age-verification legislation is something that the majority of Americans support, regardless of political party.
“For the first time, a court has ruled that a social media giant can be held liable for building products that endanger children, and has ordered the structural changes needed to fix it,” said Attorney General Torrez. “New Mexico led the way in the courtroom. It is a blueprint other states, and other countries confronting this same crisis, can now follow. But a courtroom win in one state cannot be the only line of defense for children everywhere. Every legislature, and Congress, needs to finish what this Court started.”
Olivia Woodard is a journalist with Brant One News. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram at @brantonenews.
