A US judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay another $567 million for failing to warn the public about dangers its platforms posed to children, marking the largest ruling against the company over child safety.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid said the social media giant constituted a ‘public nuisance’ comparable to air pollution and ordered the money to be placed in a fund aimed at reducing future harm.
The latest ruling comes on top of the $375 million Meta was previously ordered to pay in the same case, bringing the total to $942 million.
Biedscheid compared Meta to a factory, describing advertising and content as its products and the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children as the pollution that must be addressed.
Meta, which owns and operates Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, said it disagreed with the ruling and would appeal.
The company said it worked to keep people safe on its platforms and had been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content.
Case centres on risks to children
The New Mexico case stems from a 2023 lawsuit filed by attorneys for the state, who argued that Meta should be held liable for the way its platforms endangered children and exposed them to sexually explicit material and contact with sexual predators.
In the first phase of the trial, Meta was found to have repeatedly violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.
The court found that its recommendation algorithms effectively ‘steered’ young users towards harmful content and contacts.
Recommendation algorithms are tools Meta uses to automatically curate the content users see on its platforms.
In the second phase of the trial, Biedscheid ruled that the harm caused by Meta’s platforms reached the level of a ‘public nuisance’, referring to a health and safety issue that has become so widespread that it negatively affects the wider public.
The ruling appears to be the first time a social media company has been deemed a public nuisance.
Biedscheid said the harmful effects of Meta’s platforms did not remain confined to the platforms themselves, but extended to the wider internet and potentially the real world, creating a broader burden for affected children, their families, schools, hospitals and law enforcement.
Fund and restrictions ordered
The judge ordered the $567 million to be placed in a fund to support efforts to mitigate the wide-ranging effects of the harm.
According to the order, $420 million will be used to address harm already caused by Meta’s platforms by funding appropriate clinical or other behavioural health programmes and professionals.
Other funds will support awareness and prevention training, including for teachers and health professionals dealing with social media-related harm involving children.
The judge also ordered Meta to introduce measures including preventing accounts belonging to users under 18 from being recommended to adults and preventing adults from messaging underage users.
Meta was also ordered to ban the sending or receiving of nudity by underage users and implement a ‘one-strike policy’ for adult users who engage in child sexual exploitation.
Other measures include eliminating ‘like’ counts for users under 18, banning push notifications between 10pm and 7am, and restricting such notifications during the school year between 8am and 3pm, except on weekends.
Meta must also impose a mandatory usage limit of 90 cumulative hours per month across Instagram and Facebook for users under 18, equivalent to about three hours a day.
Meta is facing thousands of lawsuits in the US over similar issues. It also lost a case in Los Angeles earlier this year involving similar claims.
Another major trial against Meta is due to begin in California next week, involving nearly three dozen US state attorneys general who are suing the company over alleged violations of child privacy laws.
