Court Orders Meta to Pay $567M Over Youth Mental Health

A New Mexico court has ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from Instagram and Facebook. Judge Bryan Biedcheid ruled late Thursday that $420 million of the total will fund treatment services for young people, with the remainder covering awareness, prevention, screening and other costs over five years. The ruling marks the second phase of a trial the company lost in March.

Jurors in the first phase had already imposed $375 million in civil penalties, finding that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Prosecutors in the second phase had pushed for broader structural changes, including curbing addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight. The court stopped short of those demands, focusing instead on specific operational measures.

The decision forces visible changes to Meta's platforms. The judge ordered Facebook and Instagram to build banner and informational screens that explain protection features and best practices, along with tools to address inappropriate comments. Those screens must be displayed regularly. The banners and an accompanying educational campaign in New Mexico will be subject to state review.

Federal law limited what the court could order. The Children's Online Privacy Act, or COPPA, prevents Meta from applying age-verification tools to children under 13. The court cannot require the company to request personal data or passively track users for age checks. The court also said ordering Meta to verify ages only for its own platforms, not other social media companies, would be "inequitable and unduly injurious" to the company.

Instead, the court directed Meta to improve its age assurance tools in New Mexico. Those tools use artificial intelligence to estimate age based on signals such as who a user's friends are and what types of content they post and consume. Meta must attempt to build a dedicated under-13 prediction model within two years. The company should also request proof of age for Instagram and Facebook users in New Mexico it estimates to be under 13. If Meta determines a user is under 13, or under 18 without being able to estimate a specific age, it must treat the user as under 13 or under 18 until the user verifies their age.

Meta must also partner with schools or a child safety organization to create a reporting portal where school staff can flag users who may be under 13. The company must delete personal information it has collected on users under 13. The court ordered Meta to report on its progress twice a year on how it is complying with the abatement measures.

The ruling does not address the broader changes prosecutors sought, such as redesigning addictive features or tightening default privacy settings for minors. The court's decision reflects a balance between protecting children and respecting federal privacy law. For Meta, the immediate cost is $567 million in payments and the expense of building and maintaining the mandated systems. The company's next compliance report is due within six months.

Meta has not yet responded to the ruling. The Associated Press emailed the New Mexico Department of Justice for comment and also reached out to Meta. The case is a landmark for state-level actions against social media companies over youth harm, and the operational changes ordered in New Mexico could serve as a template for other states.