March 25, 2026, 00:18 GMT | Comment
While the $375 million penalty a New Mexico jury handed to
Meta Platforms was less than 20 percent of had been sought by the New Mexico attorney general, the jury's quick and decisive verdict — the first of what could be many jury verdicts about the design and harm caused by social media platforms in the months ahead — could signal trouble for Meta and other social media platforms
TikTok, Snap and
YouTube.
A New Mexico jury’s swift $375 million verdict against Meta Platforms in the state’s consumer protection lawsuit is a significant win for states across the US that are currently suing the company.
New Mexico was one of more than 40 states that sued Meta in 2023 (see
here), but it was the first to get to trial. And while the fine is only about 18 percent of the $2.1 billion sought by the state, the New Mexico jury returned a quick and decisive ruling that Meta engaged in unfair or deceptive trade practices and unconscionable trade practices, and that Meta acted willfully, handing down a verdict within 24 hours of closing arguments. They made their decision after sitting in the Santa Fe courtroom for six weeks, hearing from 40 witnesses and viewing more than 500 exhibits.
And the jury’s verdict isn't the only issue for Meta coming from New Mexico.
There is a subsequent bench trial in New Mexico’s case to decide potential injunctive relief for violating the unfairness claims and one nuisance claim against the company. The trial will begin May 4 in Santa Fe; the court has set aside three weeks for the bench trial.
The state is expected to seek changes to Meta’s social media sites, including requiring age verification, removing predators from the sites and protecting minors from encryption — changes that could harm Meta more than the $375 million penalty the jury prescribed.
“New Mexico is proud to be the first state to hold Meta accountable in court for misleading parents, enabling child exploitation, and harming kids. In the next phase of this legal proceeding, we will seek additional financial penalties and court-mandated changes to Meta’s platforms that offer stronger protections for children,”
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict.
Changes to the platform are what state attorneys general across the country wanted as they filed their lawsuits, using similar tactics from large-scale consumer protection suits against Big Tobacco,
Juul and the makers of opioids that changed those industries (see
here).
New Mexico’s lawsuit stood apart from the other AGs’ lawsuits because, in addition to alleging the company harmed children with its product-design features, it alleged Meta fostered a marketplace for sexual predators of children (see
here).
However, the state did not overly rely on that claim after Meta was largely successful in tossing out information about New Mexico’s civil investigation into the prevalence of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) on its platforms (see
here).
The state’s arguments relied heavily on internal documents that other AGs will use in their cases (see
here).
– Jury Harmony –
The New Mexico jury appeared eager to get to the closing arguments after sitting in the Santa Fe courthouse since early February, when in the waning days of the trial it took to asking Meta’s witnesses numerous questions about previous talking points raised by the state (see
here and
here).
The New Mexico jury also appeared to be very close-knit, taking a photo together Monday before closing arguments started — chemistry that perhaps helped the panel reach a fast verdict.
The New Mexico jury’s quick decision is a stark difference from a California case in Los Angeles that has been in deliberations for a full eight days as of late Tuesday. The Los Angeles jury is considering whether Meta and YouTube were negligent on claims from plaintiff K.G.M. that the platforms substantially contributed to her mental health problems (see
here).
In one sense, the New Mexico jury had an easier task than the panel in Los Angeles, which appears to be struggling to decide how to balance the domestic turmoil K.G.M. suffered while growing up in in a very troubled family environment against the alleged harm caused by her excessive use of
Instagram and YouTube.
So while the Los Angeles trial focuses on the harm to just one person, it offers in some ways an even more complex body of evidence than the jury faced in the Santa Fe trial.
The New Mexico jury, in contrast, did not try to peer inside the mechanics of individual families to weigh how Instagram affected them individually. The Santa Fe panel heard evidence that concentrated on the alleged harm that the design of Instagram and other Meta social media services caused in terms of sexual abuse, disruption of public schools and other impacts to New Mexico communities.
One warning sign for Meta and other social media companies is that in New Mexico, Meta was able to deploy its full defense, through the testimony of Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and other senior executives (see
here and
here).
Meta tried to make the case that it has aggressively responded to teens’ mental health issues by coming up with platform tools to limit online bullying, excessive time spent on its platforms and access to children and teens by sexual predators via platform messaging.
In ruling so quickly and decisively, the New Mexico jury appears to have signaled that it did not find the extensive evidence it heard about Meta’s actions to protect young users to outweigh the harm the company caused by the design and operation of Instagram.
That could spell significant trouble in trials that Meta — along with TikTok, Snap, and YouTube — face in the months ahead.
Please email editors@mlex.com to contact the editorial staff regarding this story, or to submit the names of lawyers and advisers.
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