Meta Guilty Of Child Exploitation, Fined $375 Million

Raul Torrez secured a $375M jury verdict against Meta after undercover probes showed child accounts faced explicit content, marking a major legal shift.

Meta just got hit with a $375 million judgment in New Mexico, and this verdict is the first time a jury actually sided with prosecutors accusing the company of enabling child exploitation.

The six-week trial wrapped up Tuesday with a decision that could reshape how social media platforms handle youth safety.

According to Reuters, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez brought the case after his office ran an undercover operation in 2023 in which investigators created fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram posing as kids under 14.

What they found was disturbing.

Those fake accounts got hit with sexually explicit material almost immediately, and adults started reaching out, trying to connect with what they thought were children.

The state’s argument was straightforward: Meta knew its platforms were dangerous for kids but kept telling the public everything was safe.

The company claimed it had safeguards in place, but the jury didn’t buy it.

Meta’s been dealing with this kind of heat for years now. Back in 2021, a whistleblower testified before Congress that the company knew its products could harm young people but refused to do anything about it.

Since then, Meta’s faced thousands of lawsuits claiming the platform’s designed to be addictive to teenagers, leading to depression, anxiety, and worse.

Some of those cases are seeking damages in the billions.

The company’s defense relied on First Amendment protections and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which usually shields websites from liability over user-generated content.

Meta argued that you can’t separate the harmful content from the algorithms that spread it. The jury wasn’t convinced by that argument either. Meta execs have previously called themselves pushers, getting users hooked, according to court documents released during litigation.

Judge Bryan Biedscheid’s got another trial scheduled for May, where he’ll decide whether Meta created a public nuisance that harmed New Mexico residents’ health and safety.

If that goes the state’s way, too, the judge could order Meta to actually change how its platforms operate.

Meta says it’s appealing the verdict, but this loss sends a message that juries are willing to hold tech companies accountable when they mess with kids’ safety.

The $375 million penalty is significant, but it’s pocket change compared to what Meta makes annually, so don’t expect the company to suddenly transform overnight.

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