State of New Mexico v Meta

What the State said Meta did

The State alleged that Meta made Facebook and Instagram a marketplace in which predators could find children, that it did not disclose what it knew about the harm its products cause young people, and that its algorithms spread addictive and harmful material to children. It said its case concerned Meta’s own conduct and design, and not the posts of individual users.

The investigation behind the complaint used decoy accounts presented as children aged 14 and under. Investigators recorded the sexual approaches those accounts received and how Meta responded when they were reported. The State’s complaint also alleged that a 2021 internal Meta estimate put the number of children receiving sexual harassment on its platforms at as many as 100,000 a day. That is an allegation, and Meta said the complaint mischaracterised its work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.

How Meta defended the case

Meta argued that Section 230 protected it, that the First Amendment limited what could be demanded of it, and that the State was cherry-picking documents. It said blaming social media for teenagers’ mental health oversimplifies a complex problem, and pointed to the safety tools it has introduced. Of the orders the State proposed, it said some were “technically impractical” and “impossible for any company to meet” (Source NM, 30 April 2026).

The jury verdict and how the penalty was worked out

The jury found Meta liable on two counts under the Unfair Practices Act: making false or misleading statements about the safety of its platforms, and unconscionable practices. The Santa Fe New Mexican and Source NM report that it found the violations wilful, while Reuters says “knowingly”. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that it considered 42 statements made by Meta or its executives.

The penalty was set at the legal maximum of $5,000 for each violation, over 75,000 violations (37,500 under each of the two provisions), which comes to $375 million. The Santa Fe New Mexican quotes a juror as tying 37,500 to the number of teenagers potentially affected, but other outlets report different explanations or none, so we do not state the reason. The State had asked for about $2 billion. The penalties go to the State’s general fund and not to individuals.

The public nuisance ruling and the $567 million fund

The judge found that Meta’s platforms are a significant contributing cause of the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico and facilitated child sexual exploitation. Among its findings, the court said that Meta’s recommendation features, designed to maximise engagement, connected adults with children’s accounts, relying on Meta’s own internal research (for example that 26% of the accounts recommended to people flagged as likely groomers were teenagers). It held that Meta is not immune from the public nuisance claim under Section 230 (paragraph 104), and that the jury’s finding of 75,000 violations was evidence that Meta’s conduct was unreasonable (paragraph 103). The judgment is hosted on our source documents page.

He ordered Meta to pay $567 million, in addition to the jury’s penalties, to abate the harm. The money is for the following programmes and is not a payment to individual families:

• $420 million for treatment
• $90 million for screening and assessment
• $33 million for awareness and prevention
• $15 million for referral, linkage and coordination
• $9 million for implementation, quality improvement and evaluation

The injunction, and what the judge refused

The compliance period is five years (the “Abatement Period”, paragraph 131). It starts on entry of the order and is paused during any appeal if Meta pays a supersedeas (appeal) bond. Meta must report in writing to the court and the State by 30 June and 31 December each year (paragraph 132). The terms below apply to New Mexico users on Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp is excluded (paragraph 148).

The main terms of the order, with the paragraph of the judgment in brackets, are:

• Under-18 accounts to be private by default on Instagram, with default friends limited on Facebook. These accounts are not to appear in search unless found by exact username, and the defaults cannot be changed without a parent’s or guardian’s consent (¶143a)
• No under-18 account may be recommended to an adult, and no unconnected adult may message an under-18 (¶143b and c)
• No push notifications to under-18s from 10pm to 7am on all days, or from 8am to 3pm on school days in term time, with exceptions for messages from connected users and urgent safety alerts (¶168)
• Like counts hidden by default for under-18s (¶169)
• A cap of 90 hours of use a month for under-18s, across Facebook and Instagram combined (¶170)
• A banner on Facebook and Instagram shown to adults at least monthly and to under-18s at least weekly, linking to Meta’s safety information, plus information screens for new under-18 users and an educational campaign funded by Meta (¶180 to 182)
• No romantic or sexualised interactions between under-18s and Meta’s AI chatbots (¶159)
• Age assurance: Meta must ask for proof of age on accounts it knows or estimates belong to under-13s, and mark for deletion those that do not verify within 30 days (¶142b)
• A one-strike policy for adults who sexually exploit children, and human review within 48 hours of reports of child sexual exploitation (¶154 and 155)
• Instagram’s end-to-end encryption, which Meta has already stopped offering, must stay off during the period. A ban on it for Facebook was refused (¶144)
• Refused by the court: any change to autoplay, infinite scroll or the algorithms (¶160 to 173, the judge citing the First Amendment and Section 230 and the effect on Meta alone), a child safety monitor (¶198, though one may be appointed later, ¶201), and a hard age-verification mandate, which the judge called an unworkable barrier (¶140)

What happens next

Meta says the abatement figure rests on errors and should be about $60 million, and has said it will appeal. We found no ruling on its post-judgment motions and no notice of appeal as at 11 October 2026. The judge had already said the injunction terms cannot be paused during an appeal. The State has applied to recover its costs, which are not part of the $942 million.

Attorney General Torrez said in April 2026 that he believes more than 40 attorneys general are advancing litigation and that New Mexico is sharing its list of injunctive demands with them. Our updates page records developments as they happen.