The ruling does more than punish Meta with another enormous bill. It could fundamentally change how Facebook and Instagram operate for young people.
For years, parents have been told that keeping children safe on social media requires vigilance at home. Check their phones. Discuss online risks. Set reasonable limits. Watch for strangers, harmful content and troubling changes in behavior.
A New Mexico court has now placed far more responsibility on the company designing the platforms.
Chief District Court Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a program intended to address harm to young people. The judge also imposed extensive protections affecting how minors in New Mexico use Facebook and Instagram.
The money comes on top of a $375 million civil penalty imposed in March, bringing Meta’s total financial liability in the case to $942 million. Meta disputes the findings and says it will appeal.
Although the ruling applies directly to New Mexico, its consequences could reach much further. Other states, school districts and families are pursuing related claims against social media companies, making this case an early test of how much responsibility technology companies can bear for the way their products affect children.
A courtroom battle becomes a blueprint for change.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Meta in 2023, accusing the company of misleading consumers about platform safety, designing features that encouraged compulsive use and failing to protect minors from sexual exploitation.
The legal fight unfolded in two phases.
In March 2026, a Santa Fe jury found that Meta had violated the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act. The jury concluded that the company misrepresented the safety of Facebook and Instagram for younger users and imposed $375 million in civil penalties. The penalty represented the maximum allowed for 75,000 violations identified in the case.
The second phase focused on whether Meta’s platforms created a public nuisance and what the company should be required to do about it.
After hearing three weeks of testimony without a jury, Biedscheid sided with the state on the central claim. The judge determined that Meta’s platforms were a significant contributing cause of New Mexico’s youth mental health crisis.
The resulting order is not limited to another financial penalty. It reaches directly into the design and daily operation of Facebook and Instagram.
Most of the money will pay for treatment.
The $567 million will finance a five-year abatement program intended to address the effects identified during the trial.
Of that total, $420 million is designated for treatment services. The remaining money will support awareness campaigns, prevention programs, mental health screening, assessments, referrals, coordination and evaluation.
That distinction matters. The earlier $375 million represented civil penalties for violations of state law. The new $567 million is intended to help New Mexico respond to the public harm the court found.
The fund’s size reflects the judge’s conclusion that the problem cannot be solved with a warning label or a single policy update. Treatment, prevention and continued evaluation require years of work, particularly when the affected population includes young people throughout the state.
Meta must report its progress twice a year. Those reports will be due to the court and the state by June 30 and December 31 during the five years.
The reporting requirement gives New Mexico a continuing role in assessing compliance. It also prevents the order from becoming a one-time announcement followed by changes that cannot be measured publicly.
A 90-hour monthly limit changes the equation.
One of the most striking requirements is a mandatory usage cap for minors.
Known or estimated users under 18 will be limited to 90 hours per month across Facebook and Instagram. That works out to an average of roughly three hours per day, though usage could vary across the month.
For many families, three hours may still sound like a generous allowance. From Meta’s perspective, however, a court-ordered ceiling represents a direct intervention in a business model built around engagement.
More time on a platform can mean more opportunities to display advertising, collect signals about users’ interests and recommend additional content. A mandatory limit therefore affects more than a teenager’s screen habits. It places a legal boundary around how long Meta can hold that young person’s attention.
The ruling does not eliminate parental responsibility, nor does it declare that every minute spent on social media causes harm. It instead treats unrestricted engagement as a product feature that can be regulated when minors are involved.
That approach could become one of the case’s most important legacies.
Notifications will go quiet at night and during school.
The order also targets the steady rhythm of alerts that pulls users back into an app.
Meta must stop most push notifications to known or estimated users under 18 between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The company must also restrict notifications between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the school year, with limited exceptions.
This change addresses a simple but powerful part of social media design. A notification can interrupt sleep, homework, a classroom discussion, or an in-person conversation. It does not merely inform a user that something happened. It creates an invitation to return immediately.
For teenagers, that invitation can be difficult to ignore, especially when it involves a message, reaction, or social interaction that feels urgent.
The ruling effectively creates protected periods when the apps must become quieter. It does not require teenagers to surrender their phones or close their accounts. It removes some of the prompts encouraging them to reopen the platforms.
Likes, messages and recommendations face new controls.
Under the court’s order, like counts will be hidden by default for users under 18 unless a parent or guardian approves a change.
Likes have long functioned as a visible measure of attention and approval. For adults, that number can feel trivial. For a teenager navigating friendships, appearance and belonging, it can carry much greater emotional weight.
The order also places tighter restrictions on contact between adults and minors. Meta cannot recommend accounts belonging to users under 18 to adults. Adults who are not already connected to a minor will be blocked from sending that young person a message.
Instagram accounts belonging to minors must remain private by default. On Facebook, teen accounts will have friend settings that initially limit connections to other users under 18.
Together, these measures address two distinct concerns raised in the case: the emotional pressure created by engagement features and the danger of unwanted adult access to children.
The protections are significant because they operate automatically. A teenager or parent does not need to search through several menus and discover the safest setting. Safety becomes the starting position.
Meta must get better at estimating age.
Age verification remains one of the most difficult parts of protecting children online.
Platforms often rely on users to provide a birth date when creating an account. A child can enter a different year in seconds. More aggressive verification may require identification documents, facial analysis, or the collection of additional personal information, creating new privacy concerns.
The court acknowledged that federal children’s privacy law limits what New Mexico can require Meta to collect from children under 13. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act restricts the collection of personal data from younger children without proper parental consent.
Rather than impose universal identification checks, the ruling orders Meta to improve its existing age-assurance systems. Those tools can use behavioral signals, including a user’s connections and the kinds of content they post or consume, to estimate an age range.
Meta must attempt to develop a specialized model for identifying users under 13 within two years. When its systems conclude that an account may belong to someone below that age, the company must seek proof of age.
If the user does not verify their age within 30 days, Meta must delete the underage account. It must also delete personal information already collected from users determined to be under 13.
An appeal process will be required for people who believe Meta has estimated their age incorrectly.
Schools will gain a new way to report underage accounts.
The court also ordered Meta to work with schools or a child safety organization to create a reporting portal.
That portal will allow authorized school employees to flag accounts they believe belong to children under 13. It could give teachers and administrators a clearer route to report accounts discovered during bullying incidents, safety investigations, or discussions with families.
The requirement places schools in a sensitive position. Educators already face growing pressure to manage conflicts that begin online but spill into classrooms. A dedicated portal may help them alert Meta more quickly, but it could also raise questions about training, privacy, and the appropriate boundaries of school involvement.
The practical value will depend on how the system is designed. A reporting form means little if warnings disappear into a queue or receive automated responses that do not resolve the problem.
For that reason, the court’s ongoing reporting requirements may prove as important as the portal itself.
Safety information must become harder to miss
Facebook and Instagram will have to display recurring banners and informational screens explaining safety features, parental controls, recommended practices, and tools for reporting inappropriate behavior.
Meta must also fund an education campaign in New Mexico addressing platform risks and available protections.
This part of the ruling tackles a familiar problem. Technology companies may offer safety settings, but users do not always know those settings exist. Important controls can sit several menus deep, surrounded by unfamiliar language or introduced through announcements that many families never see.
A recurring banner puts that information directly in front of users.
Still, information alone will not determine whether the ruling succeeds. The controls must be understandable, accessible, and effective. Parents need to know not only that a setting exists, but what it changes and what it cannot prevent.
The judge did not grant everything New Mexico wanted
The ruling represents a major victory for the state, but Biedscheid declined to approve every proposed remedy.
The judge did not appoint an independent child safety monitor. New Mexico can seek additional penalties or relief if Meta fails to comply, but the court stopped short of placing an outside monitor inside the company’s operations.
The court also rejected some requested restrictions involving recommendation systems, autoplay and infinite scrolling. The judge found that certain changes could raise First Amendment concerns, harm Meta’s competitive position or conflict with federal legal protections.
That balance could become central during the appeal. Courts must decide when a state is protecting children from harmful product design and when its requirements go too far in controlling a platform’s editorial or technological choices.
Biedscheid also rejected Meta’s broader argument that Section 230 shielded the company from New Mexico’s claims. The judge concluded that the case challenged Meta’s own platform features and design decisions, rather than simply holding it responsible for content posted by third parties.
Meta says the ruling misrepresents its record.
Meta has made clear that the case is not over.
“We disagree with the ruling and will appeal,” the company said.
The company said it works to protect users and has been open about the difficulty of identifying harmful content and bad actors. It also said it remained confident in its record of protecting teenagers online.
Meta has introduced teen-focused safety features in recent years, including private default settings, messaging limits, parental tools and restrictions on sensitive content. The dispute is not simply about whether those tools exist. It is about whether Meta acted soon enough, designed them effectively and accurately represented the risks facing younger users.
The appeals process could delay or alter parts of the judgment. It may also produce important decisions about state authority, platform design, children’s privacy and federal protections for technology companies.
