A jury in New Mexico just ordered Meta to pay $375 million for failing to protect children on its apps. The trial focused on whether the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, ignored child predators and lied to the public about safety. Jurors decided that Meta knowingly broke state consumer protection laws. They found the tech giant guilty of using unfair business practices that put young users at serious risk.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez started this legal battle back in 2023. His office ran an undercover operation to test Meta’s safety claims. Investigators created a fake social media profile for a 13-year-old girl. Torrez said predators quickly flooded the fake account with explicit images and harmful requests. This alarming evidence formed the backbone of the state’s lawsuit. During closing arguments, state lawyers asked the jury to hit Meta with a massive $2 billion penalty, though the jury ultimately settled on $375 million.
Meta quickly rejected the jury’s decision. A company spokesperson announced plans to appeal the verdict. The company insists it works hard to keep people safe and faces complex challenges when hunting down bad actors. However, Torrez called the verdict a historic victory for families. He accused Meta executives of prioritizing profits over the safety of children. Torrez pointed out that the company ignored direct warnings from its own employees and actively lied to the public about the dangers lurking on its platforms.
During the trial, prosecutors showed the jury internal company messages that painted a disturbing picture. These documents revealed conversations among Meta employees regarding CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s 2019 plan to use end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger. Employees warned that hiding these messages would stop the company from reporting millions of child abuse files to law enforcement. Torrez noted that Meta accused his team of cherry-picking these documents. However, he argued that prosecutors simply revealed the dark truth that Meta desperately wanted to hide from its users.
The legal fight in New Mexico is not over yet. On May 4, a judge will take over the second phase of the trial without a jury. The judge will decide if Meta created a public nuisance and whether the company must pay for public programs to fix the damage. State lawyers also want the judge to force Meta to change how its apps work. They are demanding strict age verification tools, better systems to remove predators, and new rules to stop bad actors from hiding behind encrypted messages. Torrez hopes these forced design changes in New Mexico will eventually become the standard across the entire country.
This lawsuit represents a new way to fight giant technology companies. For years, tech companies used a federal law called Section 230 to dodge lawsuits. This law usually protects platforms from being held responsible for what their users post. To beat this defense, Torrez and his team changed their strategy. They sued Meta over the apps’ actual design, not just the content users shared. This clever tactic worked against Meta, and Torrez is currently using the same strategy in another ongoing lawsuit against Snapchat.
Legal experts now compare these social media lawsuits to the famous Big Tobacco trials of the 1990s. Just like the cigarette companies, tech giants face accusations of hiding the true dangers of their products from the public. Meta is fighting multiple battles at once. Right now, a different jury in Los Angeles is deciding if Meta and Google purposely designed apps that addicted young users and caused severe mental distress. Later this year, a massive federal trial in California will bring Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat to court over similar mental health claims from parents and school districts nationwide.
