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

This article puts it well: "Bad defendants make bad law".

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/everyone-cheering-the-so...

I am not a fan of this case. The plaintiff suffered from severe emotional and physical abuse and turned to social media as an outlet. Social media abuse is certainly associated with poor mental health but the evidence that social media harms mental health is very thin. It's not like cigarettes or alcohol because there are plenty of beneficial uses of social media.

Meta is annoying as hell and should be broken up, but holding them liable for bad design features creates a disturbing precedent that weakens Section 230, free speech, and even E2E encryption, as the NM DOJ themselves said:

> [NMDOJ will ask Meta for specific changes] including enacting effective age verification, removing predators from the platform, and protecting minors from encrypted communications that shield bad actors.

https://nmdoj.gov/press-release/new-mexico-department-of-jus...

State AGs acting in bad faith are going to weaponize this. In fact, they're doing this now, and much of the "protect the children" laws, like KOSA or social media bans, have a transphobic coalition behind them to cut off LGBTQ+ kids from resources online.

This reminds me of US v. Andrew Auernheimer where the DOJ wanted to make an example out of weev, a terrible person, to expand the government's enforcement powers under CFAA.

Yes. But only when they started taking the bus to school and having extra-curricular activities. They had zero portable screen time until they were double digit ages. When they got their iPads, it was made extremely clear that they were not to be used to avoid social situations. It doesn't come out when people are over. It doesn't come out during dinner. It doesn't come out when we're engaged in a family activity. That of course carried over to their phones.

They have zero issues with phones. They even use social media. Somehow they aren't the mindless zombies everyone else's children seem to be turning into. My daughters are in dance and show choir. My youngest plays flute, saxophone and cello. My middle daughter plays clarinet and violin and is learning on her sister's cello. She has a 4.1 gpa so far in high school and just received an award for it. She was one of seven students to receive it out of a class size of almost 600. Because of her musical accomplishments she was invited to play in the UK with other students from around the state next year. They both play tennis and volleyball and have recently taken up pottery. Both are voracious readers who keep testing my limits at Barnes & Noble.

It's amazing what mature and responsible people children can turn into when that's what you expect from them instead of constantly giving into everything they want. All of those activities are voluntary at this point. We don't force them into any of those things. They know that if they didn't do any activities we would find things to keep them occupied like we did when they were younger. So they do a good job of staying busy themselves choosing the things they want to do but still have plenty of time to chat with friends and play roblox and minecraft and even scroll tiktok when they want. Neither of them have a set bedtime. But they know staying up late won't get them out of getting up in the morning so they manage that themselves as well at this point.

We set expectations around them being responsible and mature and they have delivered and have many privileges as a result of it. They have definitely slipped. They are humans. They have bad days and sometimes bad weeks. And when they stop being responsible, they lose those privileges including their phones. Earlier this year my youngest lost all of her electronics for over a month because she's stubborn and still tests things. It wasn't difficult at all to remove and keep the devices from her until behavior changed. The fact that so many parents on HN find it impossible without legal enforcement on everyone is quite frankly fucking insane. But it also seems to explain things like the literacy crisis. These "parents" cannot even take phones away from their children. No way in hell they are making them read.

Honestly this really just reflects on you and what you're capable of doing. All of my children eat vegetables. My middle daughter decided to become a vegetarian at 14. I can absolutely make sure that they do their homework. Otherwise there will be consequences. It's not been an issue. They are smart and get excellent grades. I can absolutely influence their ability and desire to take interests in things. It starts with taking interest yourself. My wife and I read books like they are going to disappear and my children have followed suit. We required our children to do some sort of extra-curricular activities and if they didn't choose them then we would. They learned pretty quickly to pick out things they are actually interested in doing.

All of these things that are somehow "impossible" for you are just facts about how my children were raised. And no, their success or failure is not up to the lowest common denominator in society. It's up to us as parents to raise them and equip them for the world. Not complain about how the world should change so you don't have to tell your kids "no".

Can't remember where I saw it but some years back someone wrote something like "if the punishment for a crime is financial then it only deters poor people" which makes sense.