Meta Platforms is facing an intensifying legal fight over child safety on its social media platforms, with a New Mexico jury delivering the first verdict in a series of child-safety trials that have been moving through U.S. courts this year.
In New Mexico, a jury found Meta’s platforms harmed children’s mental health and imposed a $375 million penalty, an outcome that the Associated Press report said illustrates how public scrutiny of social media companies’ responsibilities is shifting. The fine, while small compared with Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201 billion, adds to a growing set of cases brought by school districts, government entities and families.
The New Mexico case was led by Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who sued Meta in 2023. Prosecutors said they built their case by posing as children on social media, documenting sexual solicitations they received, and tracking Meta’s response to those solicitations. In the trial, jurors sided with state prosecutors and found Meta in violation of state consumer protection law, including thousands of separate violations that each counted toward the total penalty.
The verdict followed a nearly seven-week trial in New Mexico. The jury found Meta violated parts of the state’s Unfair Practices Act, according to the Associated Press account, including findings that Meta hid what it knew about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and the impacts on child mental health. The jury also agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and engaged in what jurors described as “unconscionable” trade practices that unfairly took advantage of children’s vulnerabilities and inexperience.
Meta said it disagrees with the verdict and will appeal. In a statement cited by the Associated Press, the company said it works to keep people safe and is clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content, adding that it remains confident in its record of protecting teens online.
While Meta’s New Mexico verdict is an early milestone, other major cases are still moving. A Los Angeles proceeding, described in the report as a landmark case seeking to hold tech companies responsible for harms to children, centers on arguments that platform design features were made to be addictive for young users. The Associated Press account said TikTok and Snap settled before the trial began, leaving Meta and YouTube as remaining defendants.
At the Los Angeles trial, plaintiffs used the case of a 20-year-old identified by the initials “KGM,” whose case could become a bellwether for how similar suits play out. Matthew Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center, representing more than 1,000 plaintiffs, told the court that the case was a “monumental inflection point in social media,” and noted that it had reached trial after years in which no one expected it would.
In a separate track, school districts are scheduled to go to trial this summer in Oakland, California, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The report said the case uses a multidistrict litigation structure and names six public school districts as bellwethers. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jayne Conroy, who also previously worked on opioid-epidemic accountability efforts, said the central theme in both cases is addiction, arguing it threatens children’s well-being through how much children watch and how content is targeted.
Conroy told the court that the medical science behind addiction arguments is “not really all that different,” and she cited a dopamine reaction in both cases, according to the Associated Press report. She also argued that plaintiffs expect to show that defendants knew about risks, downplayed them, and continued business practices she said prioritized profits over children’s safety. She referenced what plaintiffs said they proved in the opioid cases—knowledge of risk, downplaying it, oversupplying, and resulting deaths—and argued the parallel applies in the social media litigation.
Both the New Mexico and Los Angeles proceedings are being watched for what they could mean for defenses that companies have invoked, including First Amendment arguments and Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which can shield platforms from liability for content posted by others. The Associated Press report said outcomes in these cases could affect how companies face potential legal fees, settlements and, possibly, operational changes that reshape product design and enforcement.
As juries weigh evidence, the lawsuits continue to unfold against competing narratives about whether social media use should be described as addiction and what harm it causes. The report noted that during questioning in the Los Angeles trial, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he still agrees with a previous statement that the existing scientific work has not proven that social media causes mental health harms, while other researchers and communities have raised concerns about the effects of heavy use on children. In the meantime, the court process could extend for years as cases move through appeals and any settlement discussions, with the Associated Press report adding that U.S. tech regulation has progressed more slowly than in Europe and Australia.