A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay a further $567 million over the harm its platforms cause children, in what is the largest financial penalty imposed on the company in a child safety case.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that the owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads is a “public nuisance” comparable to air pollution, and directed that the money be placed in a fund intended to reduce future harms.
The award is in addition to $375 million Meta was already ordered to pay in the same case, bringing the total to $942 million — about £421 million on the latest figure alone, according to Hiru News.
The ‘factory’ comparison
In his ruling, Judge Biedscheid likened Meta to a factory, treating advertising and content as its product and “the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children to be the pollution that must be abated”.
The case dates back to a 2023 lawsuit brought by attorneys for the State of New Mexico, who argued Meta should be held liable for the way its platforms exposed children to sexually explicit material and to contact with sexual predators.
In the first phase of the trial, Meta was found to have repeatedly violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, with the court finding that its recommendation algorithms — the tools that automatically curate what a user sees — effectively steered young users towards harmful content and contacts. The second phase concluded that those harms had reached the level of a public nuisance, an issue of health and safety widespread enough to burden the general public.
The BBC reported that the ruling also appears to be the first time a social media company has been deemed a public nuisance.
Meta to appeal
“We disagree with the ruling and will appeal,” a Meta spokesman said. The company added that it works “hard to keep people safe on our platforms” and has “been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content”, saying it remained confident in its record of protecting teenagers online.
Meta gave a similar response to the earlier $375 million verdict, which was the first time a US state had successfully sued the company over child safety. It is currently facing thousands of comparable lawsuits across the United States, and lost a separate case in Los Angeles earlier this year.
