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Meta ordered to pay $567m more in New Mexico child safety case
The New Mexico judge said Meta’s conduct amounted to a public nuisance and required the funds to go into a program aimed at reducing future harms, bringing the case total to $942m.
BBC Business reports a New Mexico judge ordered Meta, the parent of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, to pay an additional $567 million for failures related to how its platforms harmed children.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid said the ruling reflects Meta’s harms reaching the level of a public nuisance, and compared the company’s content and advertising model to a factory where the resulting psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children is akin to pollution that must be abated.
The $567 million penalty is in addition to $375 million that Meta was already ordered to pay in the same case, bringing the total to $942 million. The judge also ordered the money to be placed into a fund intended to reduce future harms.
According to BBC Business, the case stems from a 2023 lawsuit by New Mexico attorneys, and followed findings in earlier trial phases that Meta’s recommendation algorithms repeatedly violated the state’s Unfair Practices Act by steering young users toward harmful content and contacts. Meta had said it planned to appeal the earlier $375 million verdict.