Overview
- Meta, which a New Mexico jury found liable on Wednesday, was ordered to pay $375 million for failing to warn users and protect minors from sexual predators on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- Prosecutors in New Mexico built the case with undercover teen accounts and internal records that estimated about 100,000 children a day saw sexualized content or harassment, including a warning that Instagram functioned as a “victim discovery” service.
- A Los Angeles jury the same day found Meta and Google/YouTube negligent for features linked to compulsive use such as infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendations, and image filters, awarding a 20-year-old $3 million for anxiety, depression, and body-image harm.
- Meta said it will appeal both outcomes, jurors in Los Angeles will next consider punitive damages, and a May 4 New Mexico hearing will weigh court-ordered product changes to better shield children.
- The verdicts align with thousands of similar claims, including a consolidated federal case exceeding 2,400 proceedings, and they advance a strategy that targets platform design choices rather than user content in a way likened to past tobacco litigation.