Court orders Meta to pay $567 Million over harm to young people
A New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to pay $567 million to address harm to young people caused by its platforms.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that $420 million of the penalty will fund treatment services for young people. The remaining amount will support awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next five years.
New penalty
The new penalty comes on top of the $375 million in civil penalties jurors ordered Meta to pay in March. At the time, jurors found that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. The combined amount reaches $942 million.
In the second phase of the trial, prosecutors sought changes at Meta aimed at limiting addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and increased oversight.
Banner and informational screens
The court ordered Meta to create banner and informational screens explaining its protection features, best practices and tools for addressing inappropriate comments. The company must also implement an educational campaign in New Mexico, with both measures subject to state review.
The ruling also requires Meta to continue improving its age-assurance tools in New Mexico. These tools use artificial intelligence to estimate users’ ages based on signals including their friends and the content they post and consume. Meta must also attempt to develop a dedicated model for identifying users under 13 within the next two years.
Proof of age
Meta must request proof of age from Instagram and Facebook users in New Mexico whom it estimates to be under 13. Users determined to be under 13, or under 18 when a specific age cannot be estimated, must be treated as under 13 or under 18 until they verify their age.
The company must also work with schools or a child-safety organization to establish a reporting portal through which school staff can flag users who may be under 13. Meta must delete personal information collected from users under 13 and report twice a year on its progress in complying with the court’s measures.
The court said federal children’s privacy laws prevent Meta from applying age-verification measures to children under 13 that require them to submit personal information or be passively tracked online. It also said requiring age verification only from Meta, rather than other social media companies, would be inequitable and unduly harmful to the company.
Meta wants to appeal the ruling
Meta said it will appeal the ruling. The company said it works to keep people safe on its platforms and remains confident in its record of protecting teenagers online.
The ruling represents another setback for Meta, which faces thousands of lawsuits from families alleging that children were harmed by social media.
Meta is also preparing for a federal trial later this month in Oakland, California. The case involves the first four of 29 states that sued Meta in 2023, alleging that the company contributed to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that made the platforms addictive to children.