Overview
- Meta, found liable Tuesday by a New Mexico jury, was ordered to pay $375 million for violating state consumer-protection laws by failing to shield minors from sexual exploitation risks.
- In Los Angeles on Wednesday, jurors held Meta and Google/YouTube liable for design-driven addiction harms and set roughly $6 million in combined payments, including $3 million in damages to the 20-year-old plaintiff.
- Prosecutors in New Mexico used an undercover probe that created child personas and documented explicit content and adult solicitations reaching those accounts on Facebook and Instagram.
- A judge will hold a remedies phase in May in the New Mexico case to consider additional penalties and possible design changes to Meta’s platforms.
- Legal observers say these bellwether verdicts move the fight from what users post to how apps are built, with features like infinite scroll and autoplay under scrutiny, a shift that could shape thousands of pending suits and new state policies.