In the second phase of New Mexico’s already big bucks social media lawsuit against META, a judge today slapped the Mark Zuckerberg created tech-giant with a penalty in the hundreds of millions of dollars and also put some potentially big restrictions about the company can and cannot do when it comes to kids being on their platforms.
“Although Meta …social media platforms are a significant contributing factor to the current mental health crisis among New Mexico’s youth established by the substantial evidence in this case,” wrote Judge Bryan Biedscheid today ordering the company to payout $567 million to safeguard minors hand over money to the state’s mental health treatment programs and put a hard limit of 90 hours a month on individual use of social media platforms.
Still, in typical Zuckeberg fashion, almost immediately after Judge Biedscheid ordered META to pay to combat the consequences of Instagram and Facebook (WhatsApp got a pass) the company stridently denied there is a problem and vowed to take the whole thing back to court.
“We disagree with the ruling and will appeal,” a META spokesperson told Deadline of the nearly $600 million that is now added to the $375 million the tech-giant was ordered in March to fork over in the Land of Enchantment in the menta health “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
BTW – The $375 million sum from the spring is based off the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation for such mental health cases under New Mexico law. In total META is on paper paying out $942 million.
While that sum won’t prevent Zuckerberg from being able to pay his VISA bill, it could have devastating growth potential for META when one considers the recent L.A. action and thousands of similar suits across the country META is named in.
Put in context, META has a market capitalization of around $1.50 trillion. That’s a lot of dough, but not limitless — and state Attorney Generals know it. Which is exactly the message New Mexico’s Raul Torrez was sending today.
“This case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence,” Torrez said after the latest ruling was filed. “Today’s decision is a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child and every child who deserves to grow up safer online.”
