New Mexico Jury Orders Meta to Pay $375 Million Over Child Safety Failures

A New Mexico jury on March 24, 2026 ordered Meta Platforms to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled the sexual exploitation of minors, marking the first bench trial loss for the social media giant over acts committed on its platforms. The jury, sitting in State District Court in Santa Fe, found Meta liable on both claims brought by the state under the Unfair Practices Act, awarding the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation until reaching the $375 million total. The verdict came after six weeks of trial proceedings and less than one day of jury deliberations. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who filed the lawsuit in December 2023, called the outcome a historic victory for child safety. Meta, through spokesperson Andy Stone, announced the company would appeal the ruling. The penalty, while substantial in absolute terms, falls well short of the approximately $2 billion Torrez had originally sought. 375 (million USD) — civil penalty ordered against Meta by New Mexico jury

Undercover sting and whistleblowers shaped six-week trial The case rested on extensive evidence gathered by state investigators who posed as underage users to document instances of solicitation on Meta's platforms, with Instagram described in the lawsuit as a "breeding ground" for sexual exploitation. The lawsuit followed a two-year investigation by The Guardian, published in April 2023, which revealed how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking, and that investigation was cited multiple times in the complaint. Internal Meta documents and testimony obtained by the New Mexico Department of Justice showed that both company employees and external child safety experts had repeatedly warned the company about risks on its platforms. Evidence presented to the jury included details of a 2024 sting operation, dubbed "Operation MetaPhile" by the attorney general's office, which led to the arrest of three men charged with sexually preying on children through Meta's platforms. The trial also heard testimony about Meta's 2023 decision to encrypt Facebook Messenger, which prosecutors argued blocked law enforcement access to crucial evidence of crimes involving the grooming of minors. Witnesses from law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children testified about deficiencies in Meta's reporting of crimes occurring on its platforms. The prosecution's closing argument, delivered by Linda Singer, accused Meta of communicating in a misleading way about its child protection measures while knowingly encouraging overconsumption of its platforms by minors.

„The jury's verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta's choice to put profits over kids' safety. Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.” — Raúl Torrez via The Guardian

Meta vows appeal, cites record of protecting teens online Meta rejected the jury's findings and announced it would contest the verdict in court. Andy Stone, the company's spokesperson, stated that Meta works hard to keep people safe on its platforms and is clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. The company's lawyers had argued during the trial that Meta made significant efforts to block harmful content and was transparent with users about its safety mechanisms. Meta also accused Torrez of making "sensationalist, irrelevant arguments by cherrypicking select documents" during the proceedings. The $375 million penalty, while the largest of its kind against Meta in a state court trial, represents a fraction of the company's market value, which the El Mundo report placed at $1.5 trillion. Torrez announced he would ask Judge Bryan Biedscheid for additional financial penalties during a bench trial scheduled to begin May 4, and also plans to seek court-ordered changes to Meta's apps to make them safer for young users.

„We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.” — Andy Stone via The New York Times

Verdict opens door to broader Big Tech accountability push The New Mexico ruling arrives as social media companies face hundreds of similar lawsuits across the United States, with individuals, school districts, and state attorneys general accusing Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube of harming young users. A separate trial in Los Angeles, in which Meta and YouTube face a products liability case brought by a woman who alleges the platforms' addictive design features damaged her mental health as a child, was still in jury deliberation as of the New Mexico verdict. A parallel case in Los Angeles involving Meta and Google, in which a young woman alleges the companies knowingly designed their applications to maximize time spent by young users, was also under deliberation. Suing platforms under products liability laws has emerged as a novel legal strategy pursued partly to overcome Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for third-party content. New Mexico officials emphasized that their state is the first to prevail in a trial against a major technology company for endangering minors, a distinction Torrez said should send a clear message to technology industry leaders. Matthew Bergman, a lawyer with the Social Media Victims Law Center representing the plaintiff in the Los Angeles case, described the New Mexico verdict as "the first step toward real accountability."

The legal pressure on Meta over child safety intensified significantly after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, leaked thousands of internal documents in 2021 showing the company was aware of the harmful effects of its platforms on teenagers but prioritized growth and economic profits. Haugen brought her allegations before the United States Congress and regulatory bodies. The Guardian's two-year investigation, published in April 2023, further documented how Facebook and Instagram had been used as marketplaces for child sex trafficking, providing a factual foundation for the New Mexico lawsuit filed later that year.

New Mexico v. Meta — financial stakes: Damages sought by prosecution (before: ~$2 billion (original demand), after: $375 million (jury award)); Penalty basis (before: 200,000+ monthly under-18 users in New Mexico, after: $5,000 maximum per violation under Unfair Practices Act)