Landmark verdicts put Meta’s “addiction machine” platforms on trial
New Mexico — Meta faced two major legal setbacks this week as courts in New Mexico and California both found the company liable for harm to children. A New Mexico jury just ordered Meta to pay $375 million for misleading parents about child safety on Instagram and Facebook. Jurors found the company violated consumer protection laws by claiming its platforms were safe while knowing they exposed children to danger.
A day later, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable in a landmark case over platform design. The case, brought by a young woman known as Kaley, accused both companies of getting her addicted to their products as a child, calling their platforms “addiction machines.”
New Mexico wins three-year lawsuit
New Mexico sued Meta in 2023 for violating its Unfair Practices Act, claiming the company’s algorithms were pushing sexual content to kids.
Prosecutors said this wasn’t random. They argued that Meta’s algorithms steered kids towards explicit content. The complaint said that Meta had:
“Proactively served and directed them to a stream of egregious, sexually explicit images through recommended users and posts—even where the child has expressed no interest in this content.”
The lawsuit also alleged that the platform made it easier for adults to contact and exploit minors, including grooming and solicitation.
During the seven-week trial, jurors saw internal memos and heard from several witnesses including Arturo Béjar, a software engineer who quit the company in 2021. He said a stranger propositioned his young daughter on Instagram.
Meta’s internal research presented in court showed that 16% of Instagram users saw unwanted nudity or sexual content in a single week. Documents said Meta knew about the harm.
When announcing the legal win, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said:
“Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.”
New Mexico prosecutors also found employee messages discussing how Mark Zuckerberg’s 2019 announcement of end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger would hamper their ability to catch predators. Meta has said it plans to remove end-to-end encryption from Instagram private messages, a move linked to ongoing concerns about detecting abuse on the platform.
Meta’s lawyers said that the company was protecting kids and removing harmful content. The company offers Teen Account protections and parental alerts. Still, they acknowledged that harmful content can slip through.
The $375m figure in the New Mexico case was calculated from thousands of individual violations, each counting separately toward the penalty, and Meta is set to appeal.
In the LA case, jurors found that…
Why it matters: These verdicts represent a significant step in holding tech companies accountable for their impact on child safety. As legal precedents are set, they may influence future regulations and corporate practices surrounding digital platforms.
What to watch:
- Potential changes in legislation regarding child safety on social media platforms.
- Meta’s appeal process and its implications for future liability cases.
- Responses from other states considering similar legal actions against tech companies.
Source credibility: Malwarebytes Unpacked is a reliable source known for its focus on cybersecurity and consumer protection issues.
Published: March 26, 2026 10:43 A
Source: Malwarebytes Unpacked — https://go.noligarchy.us/s4H27k