Meta's child-safety failures will cost it another $567 million

[midian182]

What just happened? Meta's defeat in New Mexico's landmark child-safety case is going to cost the company close to one billion dollars. A state judge has ordered Facebook's parent to place $567 million into a fund addressing harm its platforms caused young people. That's on top of the $375 million civil penalty imposed in March, meaning its total bill now stands at $942 million.

The decision resolves the second phase of New Mexico's case against Meta. Following a three-week trial, Judge Bryan Biedscheid concluded that Facebook and Instagram created a public nuisance and significantly contributed to the state's youth mental health crisis. WhatsApp was excluded because the court found that it didn't contribute to the nuisance.

A jury in the first phase found Meta liable for 75,000 violations of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act. Jurors concluded that the company misled consumers about platform safety and exposed children to harm, resulting in the maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation.

Of the new award, $420 million will fund treatment services for young people in New Mexico. The remaining $147 million will pay for prevention, screening, referrals, and other programs over five years.

Meta must also limit New Mexico users under 18 to a combined 90 hours per month across Facebook and Instagram. Most push notifications will be disabled overnight and during school hours, while Like counts will be hidden by default unless a parent approves otherwise.

Instagram accounts belonging to minors must remain private by default. Meta also can't recommend children's accounts to adults or allow unconnected adults to message them. The company must prevent sexualized interactions involving minors and its AI chatbots, strengthen the review of child sexual abuse reports, and submit compliance updates twice each year.

The order requires Meta to improve its AI age-assurance systems, develop a model for detecting under-13s within two years, and seek proof of age from suspected child users. It must also create a portal allowing schools to flag underage accounts and delete personal data collected from confirmed under-13s. Meta recently expanded AI facial analysis designed to identify users lying about their age.

Biedscheid rejected Meta's Section 230 defense because the state challenged product design rather than third-party content. However, he declined to order changes to infinite scroll, autoplay, and recommendation algorithms due to free-speech, technical, and competitive concerns.

Meta previously warned that the proposed requirements could force Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp out of New Mexico. The company says it will appeal the order.

"We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts," Meta said.

More than 40 states and over 1,300 school districts have filed public nuisance cases against social media companies. Meta has already settled one lawsuit accusing its platforms of addicting students and leaving schools to handle the fallout.

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Meta's child-safety failures will cost it another $567 million

 

[yRaz]

That's a just a rounding error for them, a cost of doing business. "Cost of revenue acquisition"

 

[YetAnotherDev]

That's a just a rounding error for them, a cost of doing business. "Cost of revenue acquisition"

All of this 'rounding error' nonsense undermines the good work that goes into holding corporations accountable. Meta's profits for 2025 were around $60b. $1b of penalties is going to be noticed, and that's only coming from one source. The EU are currently in the middle of targeting them with similar penalties.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

That's a just a rounding error for them, a cost of doing business. "Cost of revenue acquisition"

If they actually fined them in a way that hurt, corpos would change their behavior. That would be a problem, since this bad behavior is the wedge government abuse to excuse things like mandatory ID checks and mass surveillance under the guise of "protecting the children".

 

[axiomatic13]

If I still had young kids I would deny them anything Meta. Thankfully my kids are already grown up and avoid anything Meta already.

 

[OortCloud]

Mark Zuckerberg's parents must be so proud.

 

[NumberNine]

All of this 'rounding error' nonsense undermines the good work that goes into holding corporations accountable. Meta's profits for 2025 were around $60b. $1b of penalties is going to be noticed, and that's only coming from one source. The EU are currently in the middle of targeting them with similar penalties.

And yet the common man pays for felonies with years of their life. If the only penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower class.

 

[Endymio]

All of this 'rounding error' nonsense undermines the good work that goes into holding corporations accountable

Accountable for what, making products people like to use? If a child is consuming so much social media that it becomes harmful to them, then it's a problem for the parents to address, or the government. Not private industry.

 

[acrossthestars]

Meta also can't recommend children's accounts to adults or allow unconnected adults to message them.

Even if we take age verification off the table, there's no way Meta has been recommending alleged children's accounts to adults not in their immediate sphere of influence for a long period of time, right? This has to be a recent development, now that a person's age being over 18 is a necessary requirement to access social media. You're telling me Meta thought it was a good idea to use algorithms, to suggest minors as "facebook friends" to random adults, for long enough to be a problem? This isn't some kind of perverted social experiment, some rancid A/B testing that went off the rails? I know Meta is ethically bankrupt, but that feels actually malicious.

Like, "here's some 13-year-olds, let's recommend them to bunch of adults, crippled by arrested development, who feel like they are 13. Sure, it's criminal in nature, but remember...MONEY."

 

[Loadedaxe]

I went digging a little deeper into this one, because $567 million makes a great headline...but the details are actually worse for Meta.

This wasn't simply a judge deciding “social media is bad for kids.”

In March, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety of Facebook and Instagram and imposed $375 million in penalties. Now Judge Bryan Biedscheid has ordered another $567 million into a teen mental health fund, bringing the combined hit to $942 million.

And there are actual operational requirements behind the ruling...stronger age verification, a 90 hour monthly limit for minors, restrictions on notifications during school and overnight, tighter adult to minor messaging controls, nudity protection, and restrictions on sexualized AI chatbot interactions with minors.

Interesting detail the headline doesn't emphasize is the judge did NOT give New Mexico everything it wanted. Requests involving algorithm changes, infinite scroll and autoplay were rejected or limited over technical and constitutional concerns. That makes this considerably harder to dismiss as simply an anti Meta rubber stamp.

Meta is appealing, as it has every right to do.

But with 40+ states and more than 1,300 school districts pursuing related public nuisance litigation, this is becoming much bigger than one politician wagging a finger at Zuckerberg.

You all have heard me say numerous times, parents absolutely have responsibility for what their children do online. But “parents should parent” doesn't give a trillion dollar company a free pass if its own product design and safety representations are found wanting.

This time, there's quite a bit more behind the headline than outrage bait.

Sources:
Reuters
New Mexico DOJ
NM DOJ P2 remedies

 

[acrossthestars]

You all have heard me say numerous times, parents absolutely have responsibility for what their children do online. But “parents should parent” doesn't give a trillion dollar company a free pass if its own product design and safety representations are found wanting.

Here's the thing with that assessment: we all know it's technically true, the same that getting car insurance is technically necessary to drive a car on the road (because there's nothing stopping someone from driving an uninsured car), but a big part of the problem is that parents either won't do their part or just don't know how to.

Say your child is being hounded on social media, because they were recorded in a compromising situation, and now they are being bullied relentlessly online? Bullying, despite the best efforts of media and public education, is still an ongoing problem and will probably never go away. It might even get worse, in the coming months and years. How do you deal with that? It's not a simple matter of "unplug the computer and the bad people go away". The "bad people" are your child's classmates and sometimes the adults in the community. Their image has been tarnished. The solution used to be "change school districts and/or move to a different state", but that only works because the world was more segregated; each community was it's own place and time. The Internet made the big large world feel small and familiar―for good and for ill. It is global and all-encompassing. Lies move faster than the truth. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get a fresh start. The baggage follows you.

Now what?

 

[Loadedaxe]

Here's the thing with that assessment: we all know it's technically true, the same that getting car insurance is technically necessary to drive a car on the road (because there's nothing stopping someone from driving an uninsured car), but a big part of the problem is that parents either won't do their part or just don't know how to.

Say your child is being hounded on social media, because they were recorded in a compromising situation, and now they are being bullied relentlessly online? Bullying, despite the best efforts of media and public education, is still an ongoing problem and will probably never go away. It might even get worse, in the coming months and years. How do you deal with that? It's not a simple matter of "unplug the computer and the bad people go away". The "bad people" are your child's classmates and sometimes the adults in the community. Their image has been tarnished. The solution used to be "change school districts and/or move to a different state", but that only works because the world was more segregated; each community was it's own place and time. The Internet made the big large world feel small and familiar―for good and for ill. It is global and all-encompassing. Lies move faster than the truth. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get a fresh start. The baggage follows you.

Now what?

That is a very good point, and the strongest argument in this whole discussion.

“Parents need to parent” sounds simple until you get into situations like the one you described. Once a humiliating photo, rumor, or video spreads through a school and then gets amplified online, taking the phone away doesn't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The people involved still exist in the child's real world life, and the Internet can preserve and redistribute the damage indefinitely.

That is exactly why I don't think this can be dumped entirely on either parents or Meta.

Parents have to be involved, know what their kids are doing, teach them how to handle these situations, and intervene when necessary. But platforms also control the machinery that can turn ordinary schoolyard cruelty into something persistent and potentially global... recommendations, sharing, messaging, discoverability, fake accounts, reposting, and how quickly abusive material gets removed.

In the old days, changing schools might actually give someone a fresh start. Today, a screenshot or video can follow them to the next school, the next city, and years into the future.

So when you ask “now what?”...I think that's the uncomfortable answer no one has come up with and there probably isn't one magic solution.

Parents have responsibilities. Schools have responsibilities. The people doing the bullying have responsibility. And platforms have a responsibility not to design systems that unnecessarily pour gasoline on the fire.

That doesn't mean Meta can prevent human cruelty. It means when cruelty happens, the platform should be designed to make containing it easier, not spreading it effortless.

I think that's ultimately what these court cases need to stay focused on.

 

[acrossthestars]

Parents have responsibilities. Schools have responsibilities. The people doing the bullying have responsibility. And platforms have a responsibility not to design systems that unnecessarily pour gasoline on the fire.

That doesn't mean Meta can prevent human cruelty. It means when cruelty happens, the platform should be designed to make containing it easier, not spreading it effortless.

I think that's ultimately what these court cases need to stay focused on.

Restraining orders are legal injunction against someone and can be effective, but just like with car insurance, they can also be ignored.

The problem we're dealing with, regarding child safety, is far broader than a single law meant to protect children from harm online. I don't know the specifics of the bill (nor are they relevant), but the general trend with "digital safety provisions" is that they rely on an old world assumption of how the world works, where internet access is popcorn entertainment first and infrastructure second―a "nice to have", but not needed. That's now how modern society operates. Today, you need internet access to find a job and sometimes just to talk to people; you can be in a room full of people, but if they're all on their smartphone and you don't have one, then you are simultaneously surrounded by humanity and yet, locked out of the conversation. It's a similar problem with third-places, just more concentrated. In the "before" times, the only thing stopping you from talking to people was transportation. If you had a car, basically nowhere was off limits. Distance was the enemy. Now, the opposite is true. Distance is meaningless, but access is limited. Half of the time, the majority of your friend group will be on Discord. If you don't have a Discord account or just get banned, suddenly you've lost contact with the outside world.

We've been playing chicken with the rules of engagement of internet usage for 30 years. We all "know" that if you're not online, you cannot talk to people, pay your bills, file your taxes, book appointments, etc. Yet we still have this desire to treat the internet like this "gated community we simply forgot to lock"; the whole point of the internet is that the gate stays unlocked. It is the building tenets that lock their doors every day and the landlord that maintains the building, that keeps them safe. But, we never codified the rules of engagement into a "Geneva Convention for the Internet". We have bunch of guidelines, not hard codes of conduct, nor do we want them.

The legislature only seems to understand the internet as a more evolved version of a 4chan forum, because most of them are in their 70s and 80s, and their idea of a modern computer is basically "an IBM 5150, but even MORE RAM". They are ill-equipped to handle modern problems, because they don't understand the situation and are treating it as if it were still the early 2000s and ".dot com" domains are all the rage.

If there is legislation passed, it needs to come from people who understand the field, not senior citizens who forget that "You've Got Mail" is more than 25 years old.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Restraining orders are legal injunction against someone and can be effective, but just like with car insurance, they can also be ignored.

The problem we're dealing with, regarding child safety, is far broader than a single law meant to protect children from harm online. I don't know the specifics of the bill (nor are they relevant), but the general trend with "digital safety provisions" is that they rely on an old world assumption of how the world works, where internet access is popcorn entertainment first and infrastructure second―a "nice to have", but not needed. That's now how modern society operates. Today, you need internet access to find a job and sometimes just to talk to people; you can be in a room full of people, but if they're all on their smartphone and you don't have one, then you are simultaneously surrounded by humanity and yet, locked out of the conversation. It's a similar problem with third-places, just more concentrated. In the "before" times, the only thing stopping you from talking to people was transportation. If you had a car, basically nowhere was off limits. Distance was the enemy. Now, the opposite is true. Distance is meaningless, but access is limited. Half of the time, the majority of your friend group will be on Discord. If you don't have a Discord account or just get banned, suddenly you've lost contact with the outside world.

We've been playing chicken with the rules of engagement of internet usage for 30 years. We all "know" that if you're not online, you cannot talk to people, pay your bills, file your taxes, book appointments, etc. Yet we still have this desire to treat the internet like this "gated community we simply forgot to lock"; the whole point of the internet is that the gate stays unlocked. It is the building tenets that lock their doors every day and the landlord that maintains the building, that keeps them safe. But, we never codified the rules of engagement into a "Geneva Convention for the Internet". We have bunch of guidelines, not hard codes of conduct, nor do we want them.

The legislature only seems to understand the internet as a more evolved version of a 4chan forum, because most of them are in their 70s and 80s, and their idea of a modern computer is basically "an IBM 5150, but even MORE RAM". They are ill-equipped to handle modern problems, because they don't understand the situation and are treating it as if it were still the early 2000s and ".dot com" domains are all the rage.

If there is legislation passed, it needs to come from people who understand the field, not senior citizens who forget that "You've Got Mail" is more than 25 years old.

I think you're making several valid points here, but they're getting bundled together in a way that muddies the actual issue.

You're absolutely right that the internet is no longer some optional entertainment layer we can simply tell people to walk away from. It is infrastructure now. Work, school, banking, appointments, government services, friendships, and basic communication increasingly depend on it.

But I think that actually strengthens the case for sensible regulation rather than weakening it.

We regulate other essential systems precisely because people depend on them. Banking, telecommunications, utilities, transportation and medicine all have rules because the consequences of failure are real.

The same applies here. The goal shouldn't be some grand "Geneva Convention for the Internet." The internet is too decentralized and global for that to be realistic. The more practical target is the companies that operate specific platforms and control things like adult-to-minor messaging, reporting systems, age verification, recommendation systems, data collection and moderation.

I also agree that lawmakers can be dangerously behind the curve on technology, but simply replacing older politicians with programmers wouldn't magically fix policy either. What we need are laws informed by engineers, security researchers, privacy experts, child development specialists, parents and legal experts who actually understand both the technology and the consequences.

So I think we're closer in opinion than it might seem.

The internet being indispensable is not an argument against regulation.

It's an argument for making sure the regulation is technically competent, narrowly targeted and doesn't create a bigger privacy or access problem than the one it was supposed to solve.