A New Mexico court in the United States ordered Meta to pay 567 million dollars (492.1 million euros) to support treatment for damages caused to young people by the Facebook and Instagram social networks.
In a ruling issued late Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid stated that most of the funds, 420 million dollars (364.5 million euros), will be used for treatment services for young people. The remaining amount will go toward awareness and prevention efforts, screening services and other costs over the next five years.
This is the second phase of a landmark trial that the social media giant lost in March. In the first phase, a jury had set 375 million dollars (325.5 million euros) in civil penalties against Meta, determining that the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
In the second phase, prosecutors asked the judge to impose fundamental changes on Meta to curb addictive features on its social networks, improve age verification and prevent child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and stricter oversight.
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The ruling means that the appearance of Meta’s platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, could change. The judge ordered that both networks must create warnings and informational screens to clearly explain their protective features, such as tools for handling inappropriate comments, and display them regularly. These changes and an educational campaign in New Mexico will be subject to state review.
“We disagree with the decision and will appeal,” a Meta spokesperson said late Thursday.
“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our track record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” the spokesperson added.
The court stated that federal child privacy laws prevent Meta from applying age verification tools to children under 13. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) means the court cannot order Meta to require children to submit personal data or to have them passively tracked online, even for age verification purposes.
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The court also noted that ordering Meta to verify children’s ages while not requiring the same of other social media companies would be “unfair and unduly prejudicial” to the company.
Instead, the court ordered Meta to continue improving its age assurance tools in New Mexico, which include the use of artificial intelligence to determine users’ ages based on signals such as their friends list and the types of content they post and consume.Meta will also have to attempt to develop a dedicated “under-13 age prediction model” within the next two years.
Additionally, Meta must request proof of age from Instagram and Facebook users in New Mexico that it estimates to be under 13. If it determines that a user is under 13, or under 18 but unable to estimate a specific age, Meta must treat the user as being under 13 or under 18 until they verify their age.
The company will also have to establish a partnership with schools or a child safety organization to create a reporting portal where school staff can flag users who may be under 13, and delete personal information it has collected about underage users. The court also ordered Meta to submit progress reports twice a year regarding compliance with these mitigation measures.
