Is Big Tech finally facing a legal reckoning? For years, Big Tech companies operated as if they were almost untouchable — vast platforms, huge legal departments, and enough political clout to make the chances of accountability seem remote.
That may finally be changing, as Meta is being hammered by a judge over a case that acknowledges a causal link between social media and “child harm.”
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — to pay $567 million into an abatement fund aimed at addressing harms to children and teenagers linked to Facebook and Instagram.
The ruling comes on top of $375 million in civil penalties already imposed on Meta earlier this year, after a jury found the company had willfully violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.
Between the two phases of the case, Meta is now facing nearly $1 billion in penalties and remediation costs in a single state.
That’s not a slap on the wrist. It’s enough to make a company take precautions.
And New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez may not be finished. Meta disclosed in a financial filing that the attorney general has indicated he intends to seek as much as $62.85 billion in penalties in the litigation. That is a colossal number.
The case grew out of a 2023 lawsuit filed after New Mexico investigators created a fake account representing a 13-year-old girl. Torrez has said the account was quickly “inundated with images and targeted solicitations” from suspected child predators.
The state accused Meta of failing to adequately protect minors from sexual exploitation and other harmful material while operating platforms whose recommendation systems could expose young users to dangerous content.
After the jury verdict earlier this year, the case moved into a second phase focused on whether Meta’s conduct amounted to a public nuisance and what remedies should follow. Judge Bryan Biedscheid came down hard on the company.
“Although Meta is not alone in this regard, its social media platforms are a significant contributing factor to the current mental health crisis among New Mexico’s youth established by the substantial evidence in this case,” Biedscheid wrote.
The court cited expert testimony finding a “causal link between social media and the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico.”
Of the $567 million fund, $420 million is earmarked for treatment for people allegedly harmed by Meta’s platforms. The remainder is designated for prevention and awareness programs, screening and assessment, referrals, coordination and evaluation.
Torrez celebrated the decision.
The “judgment holds the company accountable for the damage it caused to our children, our families, and our schools, and it forces real changes to how Meta operates in New Mexico,” he said.
Meta strongly disagrees.
“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content,” a company spokesperson said.
“We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
Meta plans to appeal.
Now, there are also some important limits to the ruling. The judge did not order Meta to rewrite its recommendation algorithms, despite New Mexico seeking significant changes to the way the company operates its platforms.
Biedscheid concluded that forcing algorithmic changes could collide with Section 230 and First Amendment protections.
That is particularly interesting because the algorithms themselves have been at the center of the broader debate over social media and children. Critics argue that platforms do not merely host objectionable content; recommendation systems can actively funnel increasingly provocative or harmful material toward vulnerable users.
But the court stopped short of ordering that particular remedy. Meta will instead be required to continue improving its age-assurance technology in New Mexico, including the use of artificial intelligence, and attempt to develop within two years a dedicated system for identifying users younger than 13.
The company must also make it easier to report underage accounts and work with schools or child-safety organizations on a reporting portal for suspected under-13 users.
The judge declined to require Meta to eliminate end-to-end encryption on Facebook and specifically found that WhatsApp was not contributing to the public nuisance being addressed because it does not recommend predators or harmful content to adolescents in the same way.
READ MORE: Meta’s Child Addiction Trial Comes With a $1.4 Trillion Price Tag
The broader implications are profound. Legal experts have already described the current wave of social-media litigation as a potential “Big Tobacco” moment — a reference to the enormous litigation and settlements that reshaped the tobacco industry primarily during the 1990s.
But we shouldn’t be guilty of scapegoating Big Tech for an issue that is partly a failure of certain parents to adequately supervise their children.
Parents obviously have responsibility for what their children are doing online. No court order against Meta can replace parental supervision, boundaries or simply getting children away from screens and back into the real world once in a while.
On the other hand, parental responsibility does not erase corporate responsibility.
If a platform knows that predators are using its products to find children, or that its systems are exposing minors to damaging material, “parents should do better” is not much of a corporate defense.
Both things can be true. Parents need to parent. Companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars should also be expected to take reasonable measures to keep predators away from children using their products.
The more disturbing question is what comes next. There is a danger that legitimate concern over children could eventually become the justification for sweeping age-verification mandates, digital identification requirements or other systems that dramatically reduce online anonymity and privacy for adults as well.
The United Kingdom gave us a glimpse of this dystopian future with its under-16 social media ban.
Children will be given back their childhoods thanks to government action to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s, with less time for scrolling and more time for play.
The plans will set a new normal for future generations, kickstarting a cultural shift and driving forward the government’s fight to give every child the best start in life.
The government plans to use the same model for a social media ban as Australia.
Eliminate digital media anonymity and criminalize dissent… “for the children.”
Somewhere, upon hearing the news, Nancy Pelosi’s ears just perked up at a liquid lunch.
That is not what this New Mexico ruling ordered. But it is a policy debate worth watching as lawmakers around the country search for ways to regulate children's access to social media.
Protecting kids from predators is one thing. Building a digital identity infrastructure for everyone in the name of protecting kids is something else entirely.
For now, though, the New Mexico ruling is sending shockwaves throughout the tech industry. Meta has been ordered to put $567 million toward repairing alleged harms caused through its platforms, after already being hit with $375 million in penalties.
As RedState’s Ben Smith reported in July, four other states — California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey — are also seeking payments from Meta for “child harm.”
This could be the start of something big when it comes to reining in Big Tech. To quote Kimberly Guilfoyle, “the best is yet to come.”
