A jury in New Mexico determined on Tuesday that Meta misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and put children in harm’s way by failing to protect them from sexual predators.
The jury ordered meta to pay a $375 million penalty, significantly lower than the $2.2 billion that New Mexico sought, based on the total number of violations and a $5,000 fine per violation. Meta was found to have violated New Mexico’s unfair-practices act, a consumer protection law prohibiting deceptive or unconscionable trade practices.
Meta disagrees with the ruling and is planning to appeal it. The company regularly touts the platform features it has adopted in recent years meant to protect children online, with Instagram’s teen accounts offering the most notable set of tools.
“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
The landmark victory marks the first time a state has defeated a Big Tech company in litigation related to children’s safety on social media. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D.) has made social media litigation, including the Meta case, central to his tenure.
“Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough,” Torrez said.
“New Mexico is proud to be the first state to hold Meta accountable in court for misleading parents, enabling child exploitation, and harming kids. In the next phase of this legal proceeding, we will seek additional financial penalties and court-mandated changes to Meta's platforms that offer stronger protections for children.”
The jury’s verdict came after a weeks-long trial that followed years of litigation beginning in 2023. Torrez sued Meta after launching an undercover operation and creating a social media profile of a 13-year-old girl to demonstrate the prevalence of predatory behavior and exploitative sexual content on Meta’s platforms.
Evidence at the trial included internal Meta documents, testimony from former employees, and testimony from outside experts. Meta argued that the documents were cherry-picked and that they raised concerns it had already addressed. More broadly, tech companies have argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects them from liability over the content on their platforms. Torrez and other litigators have adapted to the Section 230 paradigm by taking a novel legal approach focused on the product design and safety of social media apps.
The next phase of the litigation will begin in May, as New Mexico pursues its public-nuisance case against Meta. New Mexico will argue that Meta should pay additional damages and be required to makes changes to its platforms, including more stringent age verification, and to protect minors from encrypted messages. New Mexico’s case against Meta is one of several high-profile social media lawsuits going to trial this year, a legal showdown that observers have likened to lawsuits against Big Tobacco companies in the 1990s.
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