Meta is raising the possibility of pulling Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp offline in New Mexico if a state court orders the company to meet a series of demands aimed at protecting children on its platforms, according to a court filing unsealed Thursday.
The warning came in the runup to a bench trial next week on allegations that the company’s platforms constitute a public nuisance. It is the second phase of a case that has already produced a jury finding that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation — a determination that led to $375 million in civil penalties, the Associated Press reported.
New Mexico prosecutors are now asking the court to order fundamental changes to how child accounts operate, including restrictions on features they call addictive, tighter age verification, and default privacy settings designed to prevent exploitation.
In the newly unsealed filing, Meta said a proposed requirement that the company achieve 99% accuracy in confirming that users are at least 13 years old was technically unfeasible.
“As a practical matter, this requirement effectively requires Meta to shut down its services — for all users in the state — or else comply with impossible obligations,” the company said in the filing.
The prospect has no modern precedent at the state level. Across New Mexico’s population of 2.1 million, a withdrawal would silence personal communication on platforms that also serve as the backbone for commercial advertising and community organizing.
Eric Goldman, codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, said the threat carried echoes of Facebook’s 2023 decision to block news content in Canada after the country enacted a law requiring tech platforms to compensate publishers. That showdown drew international attention during record-setting wildfires, when residents said the ban made it harder to find emergency information.
Goldman noted that some countries fall outside the company’s operational footprint because the regulatory burden outweighs the market value. “The cost of maintaining the separate service is greater than any value from that territory — and that could be the case with New Mexico as well,” he said.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez pushed back on the shutdown threat during an online news conference. “I highly doubt that they’re going to be willing and able to turn the lights off for their product all over the country,” Torrez said.
Torrez also challenged Meta’s argument that the proposed changes are impractical, pointing to a time “when we didn’t have infinite scroll and we didn’t have auto-play.” He said he would not turn a blind eye to exploited children because of advertising contracts.
A Los Angeles jury last month found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services. New Mexico’s case is the first to reach trial among more than 40 state attorneys general who have sued Meta, claiming its platforms contribute to a youth mental health crisis. Most of those cases are consolidated in federal court.
Meta executives have said the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use, and argues it is being unfairly singled out among hundreds of apps teenagers use. But the company’s shutdown warning represents its most direct threat yet to exit a U.S. market over state-level regulation — a move that would test how far both sides are willing to go.