A US judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay another $567m (\u00a3421m) for its failure to warn the public about dangers its platforms posed to children, marking the largest fine against the company over child safety.<\/p>\n
Judge Bryan Biedscheid said the social media giant is a “public nuisance” akin to air pollution and that it must put the money in a fund aimed at reducing future harms. <\/p>\n
Thursday’s ruling is in addition to $375m in fines<\/a> Meta was already ordered to pay in the case, for a total of $942m.<\/p>\n Judge Biedscheid compared Meta to a factory, with advertising and content as its product and “the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children to be the pollution that must be abated”.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Meta, which owns and operates Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, said Thursday: “We disagree with the ruling and will appeal.”<\/p>\n “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,” they added.<\/p>\n “We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”<\/p>\n Regarding the earlier $375m verdict in the case, Meta had said it intended to appeal the ruling and gave a similar explanation. It was the first time that a state had successfully sued Meta over child safety issues.<\/p>\n Meta is currently facing thousands of lawsuits<\/a> in the US over similar issues. In addition to the New Mexico rulings, Meta earlier this year lost a landmark case in Los Angeles which found it could be held liable for building addictive platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bruce Daisley, a former European vice president of Twitter (now X), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the New Mexico fine, while large, was “a drop in the ocean” for Meta.<\/p>\n