New Mexico Court Orders Meta to Establish $567 Million Fund to Abate Harms to Youth

On Thursday, the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico issued a decision in the remedies phase of State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms Inc. The court found Meta's platforms created a public nuisance by contributing to the youth mental health crisis and by facilitating child sexual exploitation. It ordered a range of remedies, including the creation of a $567 million abatement fund to finance various measures intended to address the harms to the public.

“In sum, the Court finds that New Mexico is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis affecting public health and public safety in and throughout the state, and that Meta’s platforms are a significant contributing cause to the crisis,” wrote Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid in the decision.

The decision follows the second phase of in the State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms Inc., which consisted of a bench trial. Its central question was whether Meta's platforms amounted to a public nuisance in New Mexico, and, if the court found that they did, what remedy would be needed to address it. In March, a Santa Fe jury found Meta liable for violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, awarding $375 million in civil penalties. The jury deliberated less than a day following that nearly seven-week trial.

The $567 million abatement fund would be in addition to the civil penalties, according to today’s decision.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Meta in December 2023, alleging the company made false public statements about the safety of its platforms while knowing internally that its products facilitated child sexual exploitation. The court denied Meta’s Section 230 defense in May 2024.

In today’s decision, the court again asserted that “Section 230 does not preclude the State’s public nuisance claim,” but the decision attempted to thread the needle on issues that the court determined might have run “afoul” of the statute, or of the First Amendment, such as issuing remedies around any particular product feature.

Nonetheless, regulation of industry-wide features that contribute to problematic use, such as infinite scroll and autoplay, require legislative or executive branch action; if the Court were to order changes to such features, it would risk competitively damaging Meta’s platforms to an unreasonable extent, and possibly running afoul of the First Amendment and Section 230 because of the direct effect those features have on content presentation.

The Attorney General had sought to force Meta to remove such features.

This piece will be updated. Tech Policy Press is seeking comment from the New Mexico Attorney General and Meta.