New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

Post by thomastjeffery » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #201

tmp10423288442 wrote: post #109

A lot of people on this story are making the usual snarky remarks that, oh, this is just a slap on the wrist—some trivial proportion of Meta’s global revenue. And that is true, but unlike the EU, for example, New Mexico is a tiny jurisdiction. It only has a little bit more than 2 million people. So actually, a fine—or a judgment—of $942 million that applies just to New Mexico is enormous. If you look at Meta’s revenu…

This analysis actually understates how massive and outsized the penalties are. The court ruling only applies to children in New Mexico under age 18. New Mexico has ~450,000 people under age 18, of which roughly 140,000 are between ages 13-17 (Meta officially requires age 13+ to use their platforms). Recent Pew surveys of U.S. teens ages 13–17 show ~70% of teenagers use Instagram and ~30% use Facebook. In New Mexico,…

Post by deepsun » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

nujabe wrote: post #135

deepsun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Meta will drag the case in appeals for many years until the order becomes irrelevant. Cheaper than paying $942m.

Why would dragging it on make the order irrelevant?

Post by globular-toast » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

hbn wrote: post #324

sajithdilshan wrote: post #169

Instagram (reels) and tiktok are truly online version of Heroine equivalent. I remember during pandemic time downloading tiktok just to see what's all the hype was about and next thing, I was wasting hours mindlessly scrolling through it. Later on same happened with reels as well. I would open the app thinking maybe just check for 15mins and time just goes by so fast and I would end-up wasting hours on it. Also, the…

I get the addictiveness of TikTok and Reels but I don't know what the solution is to the supposed insidiousness. They just figured out what you like to watch and showed you more similar stuff. Are we gonna make laws that say "if you're running a video platform you have to figure out what people DON'T want to watch and regularly shove it in their face so the feed is bad"? That still requires building a deep understand…

Post by matt123456789 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #326

matt123456789 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "without lawful authority" condition will result in this being vacated upon appeal. Meta isn't a public nuisance any more than Philip Morris. Both are regulated already, both produce addictive products, both are optional.

Are both optional in the same way? Where I live a child has a much harder time getting cigarettes than getting access to Facebook. What's the regulation here that applies to Meta you're thinking of?

Post by ngcazz » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 8:52 AM UTC

ubercore wrote: post #258

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe so but DuPont continues to pollute the world even today. I'm happy this fine happened. I hope it gets enforced, though in the current political climate I too have severe doubts it will be. Even so though, and even if this lawsuit is followed by many others in many jurisdictions that are all equally successful- the dream- the people behind these decisions still leave without a hitch. As long as sociopaths can si…

My point was more about the positive outcomes from these kinds of fines, rather than about _forcing_ corporate behavior change. If corporations are going to act like psychopaths, let's at least make them pay a tax for it with fines like this.