A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $567 million and implement sweeping new safeguards for young users of Facebook and Instagram, delivering the largest additional financial penalty yet imposed on the tech company in the child-safety litigation.
The ruling by State District Judge Bryan Biedscheid on Aug. 6 adds $567 million to the $375 million in civil penalties awarded by a jury in March, bringing Meta’s total financial liability in the case to $942 million.
The earlier jury verdict found that Meta violated New Mexico consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of its platforms and knowingly harming children’s mental health while concealing what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
The latest ruling follows the second phase of the landmark case brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. It requires Meta to fund treatment, prevention and screening programs for young people while making changes to how minors use its platforms in the state.
$567 Million Fund for Youth Harm
Of the $567 million ordered by Biedscheid, $420 million will be directed toward treatment services for young people in New Mexico. The remaining funds will support awareness and prevention initiatives, screening services and other costs under a five-year decree.
The judge described Meta’s platforms as a contributor to the mental health crisis affecting young people in New Mexico.
“Although Meta is not alone in this regard, its social media platforms are a significant contributing factor to the current mental health crisis among New Mexico’s youth established by the substantial evidence in this case,” Biedscheid wrote.
Biedscheid ruled that Meta’s conduct constituted a public nuisance under New Mexico law, comparing the company to a factory whose products generate harmful effects that must be addressed. Judge Biedscheid compared Meta to a factory, with advertising and content as its product and “the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children to be the pollution that must be abated”.
The financial penalty is substantial in absolute terms but relatively small compared with Meta’s overall financial resources. The company generated about $60 billion in profit in 2025, according to information presented in reports on the case.
New Restrictions on Facebook and Instagram
The court imposed a series of measures designed to reduce risks to minors using Meta’s platforms in New Mexico.
Among the restrictions, Meta is prohibited from sending push notifications to users under 18 on Instagram and Facebook between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The company must also limit those users to no more than 90 hours of platform use per month.
Meta has additionally been ordered to improve its age-assurance systems. Under the ruling, the company must continue developing technology to estimate users’ ages and must attempt to develop a dedicated “under-13-years-of-age prediction model” within two years.
If Meta determines that a user is under 13, or identifies a user as under 18 but cannot determine a specific age, it must treat that person as under 13 or under 18 until the user verifies their age.
The court also ordered Meta to request proof of age from users in New Mexico whom its systems estimate to be under 13, while requiring additional safeguards involving adult contact with minors, child sexual-abuse reports, AI chatbot interactions and other platform features.
Meta must also work with schools or a child safety organization to establish a reporting portal through which school personnel can flag accounts that may belong to children under 13.
Additional measures require Facebook and Instagram to provide banner and informational screens explaining safety features, protection tools and measures for addressing inappropriate comments. Meta must report twice a year on its progress in implementing the court-ordered measures, which will remain in effect for five years.
Court Limits Age-Verification Requirements
The court stopped short of imposing some of the more expansive measures sought by New Mexico prosecutors, particularly proposals targeting the design and operation of Meta’s algorithms and engagement features.
Federal children’s privacy laws limit Meta’s ability to apply age-verification requirements to children under 13. The judge also determined that requiring Meta alone to implement certain verification measures, without imposing similar obligations on other social media companies, would be “inequitable and unduly injurious” to the company.
Instead, the court ordered Meta to continue improving its age-assurance systems in New Mexico. Those systems can use artificial intelligence to estimate a user’s age based on signals including social connections and the types of content a person posts or consumes.
Biedscheid rejected some of the state’s requested changes to Meta’s algorithms and features such as infinite scroll and autoplay, citing legal and constitutional concerns, including First Amendment and Section 230 issues.
Meta Plans to Appeal
Meta said it disagreed with the ruling and plans to appeal the $567 million award and the accompanying remedies.
“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,” Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, said in a statement. “We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
The company had also said it intended to appeal the $375 million jury verdict issued in March.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez welcomed the latest ruling, portraying it as a broader warning to technology companies over the consequences of platform design decisions that can expose children to harm.
“This case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence,” Torrez said in a statement.
“Today’s decision is a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child and every child who deserves to grow up safer online,” he said.
Wider Legal Pressure on Meta
The New Mexico case is part of a much larger legal campaign against Meta and other social media companies in the United States. Meta faces thousands of lawsuits from families, teenagers, school districts and state officials alleging that features such as infinite scrolling and engagement-driven platform design contribute to mental health problems and other harms among young users.
New Mexico’s lawsuit, filed in 2023, became the first state case to secure a jury finding that Meta violated state consumer protection laws over alleged harms to children on its platforms. The March verdict found the company liable under New Mexico’s consumer protection laws.
The second phase of the case focused on whether Meta’s platforms constituted a public nuisance and what remedies should be imposed to address the harms identified by the court.
The legal pressure is also expanding beyond New Mexico. Meta faces additional proceedings in other states, including a case in Tennessee involving allegations that the company disregarded internal warnings about teenagers’ compulsive use of Instagram and associated risks. Meta is also facing a federal trial in Oakland, California, scheduled to begin Aug. 12 in a case brought by attorneys general from 29 states.
The New Mexico ruling could therefore have implications beyond the state’s borders, particularly as governments, families and school districts pursue new legal theories aimed at holding social media companies responsible for the consequences of platform design.
Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who focuses on social media and cybersecurity, described the potential significance of the broader litigation.
“America is not going to pass a law that bans social media,” Edelson said. “But if companies like Meta know they’re causing harm to users by product design, the states are finally finding a way to rein this in.”
For Meta, the ruling means a $567 million payment, a five-year set of restrictions on its platforms in New Mexico and another legal challenge to pursue on appeal. The broader issue is whether state-level litigation can establish enforceable standards for how social media companies design, operate and police services used by millions of children and teenagers.