SANTA FE — A New Mexico state court has ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million into a fund for teen mental health and to make changes to Facebook and Instagram aimed at protecting young users, adding to a $375 million civil penalty imposed earlier this year.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid issued the order on Thursday after ruling that Meta created a public nuisance in New Mexico by designing its platforms in ways that harmed children and failed to adequately protect them from sexual exploitation. The combined $942 million judgment is the largest U.S. penalty against a social media company over alleged harms to young people, according to Reuters.
The $567 million will fund measures intended to address the effects of social media use on young people. About $420 million is designated for youth treatment services, with the remainder allocated to prevention, awareness, screening and related costs over five years, according to the court's order.
The ruling also requires Meta to introduce additional safeguards for users under 18 in New Mexico. These include stronger age-verification measures, limits on teenagers' use of Facebook and Instagram to 90 hours a month, restrictions on push notifications during school and overnight hours, and controls over the display of "likes" on minors' posts.
Meta must also prevent sexualized interactions between minors and its artificial-intelligence chatbots and strengthen procedures for reviewing reports of child sexual abuse. Some remedies sought by New Mexico, including changes to algorithms and features such as infinite scrolling and autoplay, were rejected by the judge over technical, constitutional and legal concerns.
The case followed a March jury verdict that found Meta had violated New Mexico consumer-protection law and ordered the company to pay $375 million. The state's attorney general, Raúl Torrez, had accused Meta of designing products that encouraged addictive use among young people and of failing to prevent exploitation on its platforms.
Meta denied wrongdoing and said it would appeal the ruling. "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts," the company said in a statement.
The New Mexico decision comes as Meta faces a broader wave of litigation over youth safety. More than 40 states and more than 1,300 school districts have pursued public-nuisance claims against social media companies, while a federal trial involving 29 states is scheduled to begin in California on Aug. 12.
