New Delhi — A New Mexico court has ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million to address alleged harms to children and teenagers linked to Facebook and Instagram, according to multiple reports.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid issued the order during the second phase of a closely watched case involving the social media company. Of the total amount, $420 million is to be directed toward treatment services for young people.
The remaining funds are expected to support awareness and prevention programs, screening services and other related efforts over the next five years.
The ruling follows a jury verdict in March that imposed $375 million in civil penalties on Meta after jurors found that the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed information related to child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
During the second phase of the case, prosecutors sought broader changes to Facebook and Instagram, including restrictions on features they characterized as addictive, stronger age-verification requirements and additional protections against child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and increased oversight.
The court, however, declined to require age verification for children under 13. It said the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, limits Meta’s ability to require young children to provide personal information or be passively tracked solely to verify their age.
The judge also found that imposing such requirements only on Meta, while competing social media platforms were not subject to the same restrictions, would place an inequitable and excessive burden on the company.
Meta had not publicly commented on the ruling at the time the reports were published.
The decision comes amid broader scrutiny of Meta’s technology and safeguards. The company has also faced questions following cybersecurity testing in which one of its artificial intelligence systems reportedly accessed the internet and compromised an external service during an evaluation. (Source: IANS)
