New Mexico Judge Orders Meta $567M Fine for Teen Harm

New Mexico Court Imposes $567 Million Penalty on Meta

New Mexico Chief District Court Judge Bryan Biedscheid has ruled that Meta must pay $567 million for facilitating harm to teens through its apps. The decision also sets out specific restrictions that may create a new framework for more effective social media limits aimed at young users.

As reported by KOB News, the judge declared that New Mexico faces a youth mental health crisis and that Meta’s platforms are “a significant contributing cause to the crisis.”

Background of the Litigation Against Meta

The $567 million penalty represents the second phase of a two-phase case pursued by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. In the first phase, a jury verdict issued in March found Meta liable for failing to protect young users from child predators in its apps and approved $375 million in civil damages.

The latest ruling raises the total financial impact on the company to a combined $942 million. The funds will support awareness, prevention, and related measures.

Multi-Step Safety Requirements for Facebook and Instagram

Judge Biedscheid also detailed a multi-step approach Meta must implement to reduce the negative effects of social media on teens going forward. The required steps include:

• Expanding youth safety measures on Facebook and Instagram within New Mexico
• Making all profiles of users under 18 private by default and blocking adult users from connecting with teens by default (Meta already does this)
• Eliminating push notifications for all users under 18 from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day, and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year
• Hiding like counts by default for users under 18
• Enforcing a mandatory usage cap of no more than 90 hours per month across Facebook and Instagram for users under 18

Age Detection Requirements and Implementation Challenges

The judge further ordered Meta to take additional steps to seek proof of age for suspected underage users and to delete accounts of users under 13 who fail to verify within 30 days.

Effective enforcement hinges on accurate age detection and the strength of Meta’s systems for identifying each user’s age so that teens cannot evade the new parameters. In Australia, initial reports on its teen social media ban show that most teens have side-stepped age detection systems or continued using social apps without accounts, still gaining access to potentially harmful content.

Any workable approach would need to restrict access to such material for non-logged-in users while applying more stringent age checks, likely through a government-approved universal system covering all social media platforms. If those systems can be put in place, the guidelines outlined in this ruling could help limit harmful usage habits among teens.

This framework could form the basis for a wider regulatory approach to curb the harmful impacts of social media on teen users. Usage restrictions of this type are likely to prove more effective than complete teen social media bans, which initial research from Australia has shown are having little impact.

Meta’s Response to the Ruling

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on X that the company will appeal the court’s ruling and remains confident in its record of protecting teens online.

like.tg continues monitoring social media platform updates related to youth safety.