A Jury Just Found Meta Guilty of Harming Children. Here’s What Actually Happened.
For the first time in U.S. history, a state has prevailed at trial against a major tech company for endangering young people.
On Tuesday, a New Mexico jury found Meta — the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and failing to protect children from sexual predators. The jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties, the maximum allowed under state law at $5,000 per violation.
The case was brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and began with an undercover investigation in which state officials created fake profiles posing as children aged 14 and younger. What they found was that Meta’s platforms were proactively directing underage users toward sexually explicit content and enabling adults to contact minors for exploitation.
The jury found Meta liable on all counts, including for willfully engaging in unfair, deceptive, and unconscionable trade practices. Meta says it disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal.
This isn’t over. A second phase of the trial begins May 4, where a judge will hear arguments about whether Meta created a public nuisance and should be required to make platform changes, including real age verification, removal of predators, and changes to encrypted messaging that has shielded bad actors from law enforcement. Prosecutors will also seek additional damages.
And this case is one of dozens. More than 2,000 similar lawsuits are pending in federal court from individuals and school districts. A parallel case in Los Angeles, where a young woman alleges Meta and YouTube intentionally designed addictive products that damaged her mental health, is also before a jury right now. I covered that trial here.
My take: Here is the number you need to hold in your head alongside $375 million: Meta earns that amount in roughly 18 hours. If you made $100,000 a year and were fined on the same scale, your penalty would be about $62. That is not a deterrent. That is the cost of doing business.
But the money is actually the least important part of this story. What matters is the precedent. This is the first time a U.S. state has won at trial against a major tech company for harming kids, and every future case, of which there are thousands, will point to this verdict. More importantly, the May phase could force Meta to actually change how its platforms work, not just write a check.
This is not just a legal story. It is about whether the apps your kids use every day were designed with their safety in mind, or designed around something else entirely. Based on what a jury just decided, we now have an official answer.
I will be covering the May phase and what changes, if any, Meta is actually forced to make.
What should tech companies be required to do to protect kids on their platforms? Reply and let me know.
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