Meta has taken another major legal blow in a high-profile child safety case, with a US judge ordering the Facebook and Instagram parent to pay $567M into a fund aimed at addressing harm to young people.
Santa Fe—First Judicial District Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid issued the ruling in Santa Fe and ordered Meta to make sweeping changes to the way its platforms operate for minors in New Mexico. The court said the company created a public nuisance of harms associated with its services.
The lawsuit, filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, alleged that Meta designed products to drive teens’ excessive use and failed to protect them from sexual exploitation. Meta said it would appeal the allegations, which it said mischaracterized its safety efforts.
The order requires Meta to pay $567M into an abatement fund focused on youth. Of the $420 million, $420 million will fund treatment services, while the rest will support prevention, screening, and related programs over five years. That’s in addition to a $375 million civil penalty from a previous jury verdict that Meta has said it intends to appeal, giving a similar response as it did following that ruling.
That previous ruling was the first time a state had sued Meta over child safety concerns and won. In total, the two rulings mean the company could potentially face about $942 million in liability in the case.
The ruling also imposes a five-year set of restrictions on Facebook and Instagram following the order for Meta to pay $567M, including limits on teen use, stricter controls on adult-minor interactions, and new rules for AI chatbots. Meta has to stop minors from interacting with chatbots and prevent adults from using AI tools to mimic or simulate such interactions. Platforms also need to be more transparent about safety information for users.
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The company will also need to work with schools or a child safety organization to build a reporting portal where school staff can flag accounts potentially belonging to users under 13. Meta must also delete any personal data it may have gathered from users under the age of 13. The court also directed the company to submit biannual compliance reports on its progress in implementing the abatement measures.
In his ruling, the judge said Meta’s platforms had caused harms that extended beyond the individual user and also affected families, schools, and public services. He likened the impact to environmental pollution escaping from its source, a framing that highlighted the broader importance of Meta’s ruling on child safety. On these claims, the court dismissed Meta’s Section 230 defense, ruling that the matter involved platform design, not user content, a key point in the order requiring the company to pay $567M to a state fund.
But the judge did not give New Mexico everything it asked for. He declined some algorithm-related restrictions, citing First Amendment considerations and legal restrictions, and did not meet all age-verification requirements. The $567M order is a tiny slice of Meta’s total annual profit, which in 2025 was around $60 billion. The ruling on child safety at Meta is yet another blow to the company as it contends with a growing wave of accusations from families of children allegedly harmed by social media platforms.
The case started in 2023 and involved a March jury verdict and the most recent bench ruling ordering Meta to pay $567M in remedies. Meta, however, maintains it has robust protections for teenagers and that some court requirements are not feasible.
The ruling ordered Meta to pay $567M, which New Mexico officials say could serve as a model for other states. More than 40 states and more than 1,300 school districts have filed similar lawsuits against social media companies, and Meta also faces similar cases in California and Tennessee. The Meta child safety ruling could be a sign of more legal pressure to come, said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who studies social media and cybersecurity, adding that what comes out of New Mexico is the first of many legal challenges for Meta.
For now, the ruling is one of the biggest state-level actions against a tech company over child safety, and Meta’s appeal is likely to determine whether the Pay $567M payout and changes to the platform will stand. Nearly three dozen US states are expanding and reshaping their coordinated legal actions against Meta, with the next major trial against the company in California starting next week.
