The verdict marks the first time a US state has successfully sued the social media giant over child safety issues.<\/p>\n
By Agence France Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press<\/p>\n
Published On 25 Mar 202625 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
A jury in the United States has ordered social media giant Meta to pay $375m for\u00a0harming\u00a0children\u2019s mental health and\u00a0making them vulnerable to\u00a0sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n
Jurors in New Mexico handed down the verdict on Tuesday after a six-week trial in which state authorities accused the tech behemoth of failing to protect minors.<\/p>\n
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The verdict marks the first time that a US state has successfully sued Meta over child safety issues.<\/p>\n
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, is facing a wave of lawsuits over how its platforms affect young people\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n
Jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta prioritised profits over safety, and violated parts of New Mexico\u2019s Unfair Practices Act.<\/p>\n
The jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and also agreed that Meta engaged in \u201cunconscionable\u201d trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities and inexperience of children.<\/p>\n
Jurors heard testimony from 40 witnesses, including employees-turned-whistle-blowers, and reviewed hundreds of documents, reports and emails.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Mexico Attorney General Ra\u00fal Torrez, a Democrat, took Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to court in 2023 after his office ran an undercover operation in which investigators posed as Facebook and Instagram users aged under 14.<\/p>\n
Torrez\u2019s office said the fake accounts on the platforms received sexually explicit material and were contacted by adults seeking similar content, leading to criminal charges against multiple individuals.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Torrez called the verdict \u201ca historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta\u2019s choice to put profits over kids\u2019 safety\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe substantial damages the jury ordered Meta to pay should send a clear message to big tech executives that no company is beyond the reach of the law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A second phase\u00a0in\u00a0New Mexico\u2019s\u00a0proceedings\u00a0against Meta\u00a0is scheduled to begin\u00a0in\u00a0May, when a judge will hear the state\u2019s claim that\u00a0the company\u00a0should be\u00a0ordered to pay\u00a0additional\u00a0penalties and make specific changes to its platforms and company operations.<\/p>\n
A separate jury in California is weighing whether Meta and YouTube should be held liable for\u00a0harms\u00a0caused to children on their platforms, including by making them addictive.<\/p>\n
That case is considered a bellwether that could influence the outcome of thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies across the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The verdict marks the first time a US state has successfully sued the social media giant over child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164,43,44,1314,105,41,39,42,40,1055,6075],"class_list":{"0":"post-564109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-social-media","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}