Meta Just Lost a Landmark Child Safety Battle, $567 Million Ordered

A New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to pay USD 567 million to address harms suffered by young people on its social media platforms, marking another major setback for the technology giant in a landmark child safety case.

The order was issued late Thursday by Judge Bryan Biedcheid during the second phase of a trial that Meta lost in March. Of the total amount, USD 420 million will be allocated to treatment services for young people, while the remaining funds will support awareness and prevention programmes, screening services and other related costs over the next five years.

The ruling follows an earlier phase of the case in which a jury ordered Meta to pay USD 375 million in civil penalties. Jurors had found that the company knowingly contributed to harm to children's mental health and had concealed information about what it knew regarding child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

During the second phase, prosecutors sought sweeping changes to the way Meta operates its platforms. Their demands included measures to curb potentially addictive features, strengthen age-verification systems and improve safeguards against child sexual exploitation.

The court, however, stopped short of ordering some of the proposed age-verification measures, citing federal children's privacy protections.

Under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Meta cannot require children under 13 to provide personal information or allow them to be passively tracked online for the purpose of verifying their age.

The court also rejected an approach that would have required Meta alone to implement certain age-verification measures, noting that imposing such requirements exclusively on the company would be inequitable and unduly injurious to Meta.

The case puts renewed focus on the growing debate over the impact of social media on children, including concerns surrounding mental health, addictive platform features, privacy and online exploitation.

The latest ruling could also intensify pressure on major social media companies to strengthen protections for younger users while balancing those measures against privacy laws.

The Associated Press reported that New Mexico's Department of Justice and Meta were contacted for comment on the decision.