New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health
A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and impose time and notification limits on under‑18s using Facebook and Instagram, after finding the platforms constitute a public nuisance that harms children’s mental health. Commenters argue over whether this kind of fine is a meaningful deterrent or just a “cost of doing business” for a trillion‑dollar company, with some calling for escalating penalties and even jail time for executives. The thread broadens into a wider debate about social media addiction, parental responsibility versus state regulation, free‑speech and porn policy, and whether large platforms should be treated more like tightly regulated industries such as tobacco or gambling.
Legal basis and remedies
- Court relied on New Mexico’s public-nuisance statute (injury to public health, safety, morals, welfare) and found Facebook/Instagram operations harmed youth and burdened schools, hospitals, law enforcement.
- Judgment: $567m into an abatement fund, plus behavioral remedies: time limits for under‑18s (e.g., ~90 hours/month), default hiding of “likes,” restricted push notifications (night/school hours), risk disclosures, and better age-assurance/AI “under‑13” detection.
Scale of the fine and deterrence
- Some see it as trivial vs Meta’s global revenue (“a couple days of revenue,” “cost of doing business”).
- Others argue it’s huge on a per-capita basis: New Mexico is small; analysis in the thread suggests the fine may be a large fraction of Meta’s NM revenues and many thousands of dollars per teen user.
- Debate on whether fines must be much larger and/or escalating to change behavior; some call for jail time for executives instead.
Appeals, Section 230, and legal uncertainty
- General expectation Meta will appeal for years; some think the “without lawful authority” clause or Section 230 could narrow or overturn the judgment.
- Others note a judge and jury already found a public nuisance and rejected a Section 230 immunity defense in related litigation; they see this as meaningful precedent for other states.
Responsibility: platform vs parents
- One camp: parents should control devices, use filters, and “just say no”; plenty of tools exist and government overreach risks anonymity and speech.
- Counterpoint: social media is engineered to be addictive, kids can’t reasonably resist when peers are all on it, and harms resemble regulated products like tobacco, alcohol, or gambling, so platform liability is appropriate.
Harms, addiction, and societal impact
- Many describe Instagram/TikTok/Reels as “heroin-like” attention traps that damage sleep, mood, and concentration; some say screen addiction rivals or exceeds obesity/opiates.
- Others caution the law is broad (“public morals”) and could be misused against other media or porn; arguments span from “ban all porn” to “porn is harmful but bans will overreach and erase sex education.”
Benefits and unintended effects
- Some note teens use Instagram DMs as default messaging and derive social connection and exposure to broader ideas, akin to earlier forums/IRC.
- Concerns that strict youth limits may simply push kids to competing apps (e.g., Snapchat, TikTok) or create odd incentives if future payouts ever reach individual users.