Child Safety Failures: US Court Orders Meta to Pay Additional $567 Million

Dragon Media News Desk

A court in the US state of New Mexico has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to establish a special $567 million fund after finding that its platforms created serious risks to the safety and well-being of children and teenage users.

Based on Friday’s exchange rate, the amount is equivalent to approximately 86.5 billion Nepali rupees.

Santa Fe Chief District Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that the harmful impact of Meta’s platforms on children constituted a “public nuisance” under New Mexico law and ordered the company to undertake extensive policy reforms across Facebook and Instagram in addition to providing financial remedies.

The ruling comes in the second phase of a lawsuit filed against Meta in 2023 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. In the first phase of the trial in March, a jury found Meta liable for violating New Mexico’s law governing unfair trade practices and imposed a $375 million civil penalty.

With the additional $567 million ordered under the latest ruling, Meta’s total financial liability has risen to $942 million, equivalent to approximately 143.71 billion Nepali rupees at the current exchange rate.

According to the court, $420 million of the new fund will be used to provide treatment and related services for young people affected by social media use. The remaining amount will be spent over the next five years on awareness, prevention, testing and evaluation programs.

Alongside the financial obligations, the court ordered Meta to make significant changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate for users under the age of 18 in New Mexico.

Under the order, combined use of Facebook and Instagram by users under 18 must be limited to a maximum of 90 hours per month. Meta will also be prohibited from sending push notifications to teenage users between 10 pm and 7 am and during school hours from 8 am to 3 pm, subject to limited exceptions.

Meta must also make the number of “likes” on content posted by users under 18 hidden by default, with changes to that setting permitted only after parental approval.

The company will be prohibited from recommending accounts belonging to minors to unrelated adult users and must prevent adults who have no direct connection with minors from contacting them through direct messages.

Instagram accounts belonging to users under 18 must continue to be private by default, while Facebook will be required to strengthen default safeguards governing friend connections involving teenage users.

The court also directed Meta to continuously improve its age-detection technology, verify the ages of certain accounts suspected of belonging to children under 13, and take appropriate action against accounts whose age cannot be verified.

In addition, Meta must strengthen safeguards designed to protect minors from inappropriate interactions with AI chatbots and improve its system for reviewing complaints related to child safety.

The reform orders will remain in force for five years, during which Meta will be required to submit regular reports on its progress to the court and the state of New Mexico.

Judge Biedscheid compared the impact created by Meta’s platforms to industrial pollution, concluding that the consequences can extend beyond the platforms themselves and become a broader social problem affecting children, families, schools, healthcare institutions and law-enforcement agencies.

The court, however, did not accept every remedy sought by the state of New Mexico. It rejected some proposed restrictions involving algorithms, infinite scrolling and autoplay features, finding that they could raise concerns under constitutional protections for freedom of expression and federal law.

The order will primarily apply to Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp has been excluded because the court did not find that it contributed to the “public nuisance” established in the case.

Meta has expressed disagreement with the ruling and announced plans to appeal. The company said it continues to work to make its platforms safer, improve the detection and removal of harmful content and abusive users, and remains confident in its efforts to protect teenage users.

Meta is also facing lawsuits in other US states over child and teenage safety and the design of its social media platforms. A separate federal case involving 29 states is also moving forward in California.