In March, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for violating the state’s consumer protection laws in a case brought by its attorney general, accusing the company of child exploitation and other safety concerns. The court ordered Meta to pay a fine of $375 million in civil penalties. Today, after the second phase of the trial to decide whether Meta constituted a “public nuisance” harming the state’s teenage users, the court ordered the company to pay an additional $567 million into an abatement fund for related programs in New Mexico.
In his ruling, Judge Bryan Biedscheid compared Meta’s platforms to factories, with advertising and other content on them being the products of the factory and the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children on these platforms to the pollution they emit. And just as pollution can infringe on the public’s right to reasonably clean air, the harmful effects of Meta apps on children are not contained within these platforms. The judge said these harmful effects “migrate to the Internet at large and, perhaps most worryingly, to the real world.”
The judge clarified that the decision was not intended to shut down Meta’s applications. Instead, it seeks to remedy the existing damage they have already caused. However, Meta threatened in April that it would be forced to shut down its apps in New Mexico if the court sided with the state. He said the state’s requirements were so “onerous” that they “could force Meta to remove its apps altogether.” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez described the company’s threat as a publicity stunt.
The penalty Meta was ordered to pay will go toward several different programs, including youth internet safety training for teachers, school counselors, school psychologists and health professionals, as well as community health centers. In addition to paying the fine, the court ordered Meta to implement changes and security measures into Facebook and Instagram. It has determined that WhatsApp does not contribute to public nuisance and, therefore, the required changes will not apply to it.
Meta will need to maintain a private default setting for users under 18 on Instagram. If a user on Facebook is under 18, they must also limit their friends to users under 18 by default. Private accounts for underage users cannot appear in a search unless identified by their username, and they cannot be recommended to other users. These users cannot change the default settings without the consent of a parent or guardian, or unless they prove that they are already 18 years old.
The company’s platforms cannot recommend any accounts belonging to users under 18 and must ensure that adults who are not connected to underage users cannot message them. Meta must suspend push notifications for the same users from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the academic year, excluding weekends. It must hide “similar accounts” for users under 18 and also implement a mandatory usage time limit. Specifically, teens can only spend 90 hours per month on Facebook and Instagram. Meta must also display informational banners to minor users once a day, informing them of safe practices and tools they can use to report inappropriate behavior and content. The court, however, did not grant the plaintiff’s request to order changes to Meta’s algorithms, despite his argument that they create harmful feedback loops.
On X, Meta’s Andy Stone said the company disagreed with the decision and would appeal.
Meta-statement on the decision:
“We disagree with the decision and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record on…
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) August 6, 2026
