August 7, 2026
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been ordered to pay an additional $567 million after a New Mexico court ruled that the company’s platforms caused significant harm to children’s mental health.
The ruling, issued on Thursday, directs the payment into a fund established to address the mental health impacts associated with Meta’s social media platforms. It marks the second phase of a landmark legal case in which Meta was found liable for knowingly harming children and concealing what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
The latest penalty comes on top of a $375 million fine imposed in March, bringing the company’s total financial penalties in the case to $942 million.
Judge Brian Biedscheid said $420 million of the new penalty will be used to expand mental health treatment services for young people in New Mexico. The remaining funds will support public awareness campaigns, prevention programs, screening services, and other child protection initiatives over the next five years.
The lawsuit followed a 2023 investigation that alleged Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sexual exploitation. Former Meta content moderators also told investigators that reports involving child sexual abuse material were, in some cases, not escalated to senior management despite being identified.
During the second phase of the trial, prosecutors sought sweeping reforms to Meta’s platforms, including stronger age verification, restrictions on addictive platform features, improved default privacy settings, and enhanced safeguards against child exploitation.
The court ordered Meta to introduce new safety banners and informational screens explaining child protection features, privacy tools, and methods for reporting inappropriate interactions.
However, the judge declined to mandate universal age verification, noting that federal child privacy laws restrict age verification for children under 13 and that imposing such a requirement solely on Meta would be unfair while other social media companies are not subject to the same obligation.
Instead, the court instructed Meta to continue improving its age assurance technologies in New Mexico.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez welcomed the ruling, saying the case was intended to protect children and ensure that one of the world’s largest technology companies could not continue profiting from practices that endanger young users without consequences.
Meta said it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal the ruling immediately.
