GoKawiilA New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to pay $567m into a fund aimed at redressing adverse mental health impacts from the social media giant’s platforms.
The Thursday ruling comes as a part of the second phase of a landmark trial the social media giant lost in March. At the time, a jury found that the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms, and imposed the maximum penalty: a $375m fine.
The ruling on Thursday an additional to that fine, bringing the total amount Meta is responsible for to $942m.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid said the bulk of the money – $420m – would be used for treatment services for young people in New Mexico. The rest will go toward awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next five years.
The March trial was the first to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform, and followed a 2023 Guardian investigation that revealed how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking.
Several former Meta moderators told the Guardian there were instances where they flagged harmful content related to child grooming, but the cases were not escalated.
In the second phase of the trial, which began in May, prosecutors had asked the judge to impose fundamental changes at Meta aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification, and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.
The judge has also ordered other changes, including that Facebook and Instagram build banner and informational screens to clearly explain its protection features, best practices, and tools to address inappropriate comment.
Those changes, and an educational campaign in New Mexico, would be subject to review by the state.
The court said federal children’s privacy laws prevent Meta from applying age-verification tools to children under 13. The court also noted that ordering verification of children’s ages only for Meta and not other social media companies would be “inequitable and unduly injurious” to the company.
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