A New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, to pay $567 million to address mental health harms to children from its platforms.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that $420 million of the fund will go toward treatment services for young people, with the remainder covering awareness, prevention and screening costs over the next five years.
The penalty is layered on top of the $375 million in civil penalties a jury ordered against Meta in March, after finding the company knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
It brings Meta's total liability in the case to $942 million, a sum the company can absorb easily against annual profit of roughly $60 billion in 2025.
The ruling followed a second trial phase, which began in May, in which prosecutors pushed the judge to force structural changes at Meta, including curbing addictive features, tightening age verification and closing off child sexual exploitation risks through default privacy settings.
It adds to a mounting legal burden for the company, which faces a separate federal suit brought by 29 states over alleged youth-harm design features, alongside thousands of family lawsuits tied to social media harm.
