Santa Fe jury awards New Mexico $375M in Meta child exploitation case
A Santa Fe jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company misled users and enabled child exploitation on its platforms.
Jury finds Meta violated state consumer protection laws by misleading users about platform safety; company plans to appeal
Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.
A Santa Fe jury on Tuesday found Meta willfully violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws and ordered the social media giant to pay $375 million in damages to the state.
The decision came just one day after the conclusion of the seven-week trial spurred by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s 2023 lawsuit alleging that Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, along with WhatsApp, violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws and misled the public on the risks for teen users’ mental health and the levels of sexual exploitation.
“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,” Torrez said in a statement. “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.
In closing arguments Monday, attorneys representing New Mexico requested damages of more than $2 billion, which they calculated as the maximum civil penalties for 207,800 monthly teen users of the sites in New Mexico.
The jury awarded the maximum penalty of $5,000 for one count of misrepresentation of the social media platform's safety and another count for “unconscionable practices,” against 37,500 New Mexico users.
While the jury did not elaborate on the 37,500 figure in court, it accounts for one-quarter of New Mexico’s teens.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta wrote the company disagrees with the verdict and will seek an appeal, saying: “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
There is a second portion to the trial beginning May 4. NMDOJ will argue a public nuisance case against Meta and seek orders from First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid to require the social media giant to possibly pay additional damages and make changes to the platforms, such as age verification.
Danielle Prokop covers the environment and local government for Source New Mexico.
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