Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav A New Mexico judge yesterday ordered Meta to pay $567 million for a fund that would alleviate the “public nuisance” created by its social media services. The order to pay for youth mental health care is in addition to $375 million in civil penalties that a jury ordered Meta to pay earlier in the same case.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez sued Meta in a Santa Fe County court in 2023. A jury found in March 2026 that Meta’s social media platforms do not effectively protect kids from child exploitation and ordered the company to pay civil damages for violating state consumer protections and misleading parents about the safety of its apps.
The jury trial was just phase 1 of the case involving Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. “The Phase 1 jury trial considered the State’s Unfair Practices Act claims and resulting civil penalties. The Phase 2 bench trial considered the State’s request for abatement based upon the State’s allegation that the Defendant, Meta, created a public nuisance,” Judge Bryan Biedscheid wrote yesterday in the $567 million judgment. Meta reported $60.8 billion in revenue and $15.85 billion in net income in Q2 2026.
Biedscheid concluded that “Meta is a cause of and has substantially contributed to a public nuisance in New Mexico and is required to abate that public nuisance.” He said the evidence shows “New Mexico is experiencing a youth mental health crisis” with increased rates of suicide and eating disorders.
The youth mental health crisis is “burdening public and community resources throughout the State,” and “overwhelmed the systems in place for addressing such harms,” he wrote. This is in part due to problematic social media use exacerbated by “Meta implement[ing] platform features that were designed to maximize engagement and time spent on its platforms, for all users and for teenage users in particular,” the judge wrote.
“Significant numbers of people in New Mexico experience harm from Meta’s products due to risks of sexual exploitation, interference with education, and adverse mental health outcomes,” he wrote. Biedscheid said this harm includes child sexual exploitation in which “an online predator threatens or coerces a child for financial gain, typically involving a threat to expose nude or exploitative imagery of that child.”
“In sum, the Court finds that New Mexico is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis affecting public health and public safety in and throughout the state, and that Meta’s platforms are a significant contributing cause to the crisis,” he wrote.
The fund ordered by Biedscheid would include $420 million for treatment, $90 million for screening and assessment, $33 million for awareness and prevention, and $24 million for other costs. Biedscheid rejected a proposal from an expert witness that Meta fund new community-based health centers and said the treatment and related services should be funded for five years instead of the requested 15 years.
“Treatment is a necessary component of addressing harms to mental health and safety,” he wrote. “Any abatement fund must include funding for appropriate clinical or other behavioral health programs and professionals. However, requiring Meta to fund entire new physical facilities goes beyond what remedies are necessary to abate current harm.”
Biedscheid found that 15 years’ worth of funding would be excessive. Other social media companies share responsibility for the harm to New Mexico youth, so he considered Meta’s market share when deciding on an amount lower than what the state wanted.
Torrez called the ruling “a landmark victory,” and said the “case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence.”
Meta said it will appeal the ruling, telling media outlets, “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 record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
