A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund to address mental health impacts from Facebook and Instagram on young users, according to a ruling issued Thursday. This additional penalty follows a March verdict in which a jury found Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed knowledge of child sexual exploitation on its platforms, imposing a $375 million fine at that time. Together, the two rulings hold Meta responsible for $942 million.
According to Judge Bryan Biedscheid’s order, $420 million of the new amount will fund treatment services for young people in New Mexico, with the remainder directed toward awareness, prevention, and screening services over five years.
The March trial was the first to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform. It followed a 2023 Guardian investigation revealing how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking. Several former Meta moderators told the Guardian they had flagged harmful content related to child grooming that was not escalated.
Beyond financial penalties, the court has ordered Meta to implement operational changes. The company must build informational screens explaining protection features and tools, create a reporting portal where school staff can flag potentially underage users, and delete personal information collected on users under 13.
On age verification, the court acknowledged that federal children’s privacy laws prevent Meta from applying age-verification tools to children under 13. The court also noted that ordering such verification only for Meta would be “inequitable and unduly injurious” to the company. Instead, Meta must improve age-assurance tools in New Mexico using artificial intelligence based on signals like friend connections and content consumption patterns. The company must develop a dedicated “under-13-years-of-age prediction model” within two years and request age proof from users it estimates to be under 13.
Meta must also partner with schools or child safety organizations on the reporting portal and provide biannual progress reports on compliance.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the decision “a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child.” Meta disagreed, stating it “plans to appeal” and contending it “work[s] hard to keep people safe on our platforms.”
While the $942 million total represents a fraction of Meta’s $60 billion annual profit in 2025, it marks another setback as the company faces lawsuits in multiple states, including ongoing trials in Tennessee and California over alleged harms to young people.
Key facts
- A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567m Thursday, bringing total damages from the case to $942m
- $420m will fund mental health treatment services for young people in New Mexico over five years
- A jury found in March that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed knowledge of child sexual exploitation
- The court ordered Meta to improve age-verification tools, delete data on underage users, and create a school reporting portal
- Meta plans to appeal and maintains it works to keep users safe on its platforms