A landmark New Mexico case, which alleges that Meta failed to protect children online, has entered a pivotal new phase—one that will test whether courts can require changes that make social media safe for young users.
In March, New Mexico became, according to the state’s Department of Justice, “the first state to win at trial against a big tech company for misleading consumers and endangering children.” A jury found that Meta violated the state’s Unfair Practices Act and awarded $375 million in damages.
The case has now entered a second consequential phase. The outcome here will determine whether this case becomes another short-term financial setback for a tech giant or a turning point for the safety of Meta products, which include Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
The court will decide if Meta’s platforms violated public nuisance laws and created a public health and safety hazard in New Mexico that requires specific remedies to address these harms, including changes necessary to make Meta platforms safe for children. The actions ordered by this court could serve as a blueprint for how courts across the country respond to specific social media harms.
While monetary damages are likely to remain an important feature of technology litigation, previous experiences in other sectors shows that financial penalties alone are unlikely to transform safety. Experience from tobacco, opioids, gambling, and broader consumer product safety litigation demonstrates that durable and meaningful reform in how companies do business typically rely on both monetary damages and injunctive relief—in this case, ordering a social media company to change their platform to prevent future harm.
The question before the court in New Mexico is therefore not just whether harms occurred, but what interventions are most likely to reduce those harms going forward. The case is being watched closely by thousands of plaintiffs, and by social media companies engaged in litigation. The decisions ordered here could influence cases for years to come.
A recently released framework aims to answer exactly this question. Developed by the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Tech Justice Law, and the USC Marshall Neely Center, the framework draws on lessons from nearly 100 prior remedies across public health, consumer protection, civil rights, and technology-related cases, and offers a practical, evidence-based roadmap for how courts can ensure safer online experiences. The remedies fit into three categories: harm prevention, harm mitigation, and governance.
Preventing harm caused by social media means changing the product features and design choices that can negatively impact young users. If the New Mexico court determines that Meta’s platform has created a hazard to public health and safety, effective solutions should prohibit unsafe designs, restrict data collection from minors, and prohibit the collection and use of minors’ personal data for targeted advertising. These interventions can be effective at preventing harms because they proactively change designs that hurt consumers without requiring judgments about specific content or users.
For example, internal documents in the Meta case suggest that friend recommendations regularly leverage personal data to connect predatory adults to children. Removing friend recommendations for kids is a far more robust way to address this issue as compared to trying to judge on a case-by-case basis which adults are or are not predatory.
In addition to harm prevention, a second category of remedies focuses on harm mitigation, in other words, ensuring users and families have effective tools when harmful experiences occur. Meta has argued in public and in litigation that it has implemented new safety features for minors. The question is not whether Meta’s safety tools exist, but whether they work.
To protect kids online, we should focus on measurable outcomes, including the effectiveness of parental controls, meaningful account and data deletion options, and user-reporting systems with clear response timelines and accountability. One document in the trial noted that more than one in eight teens reported receiving an unwanted sexual advance in the last seven days. We should see measurable decreases in these numbers over time as a result of any steps that are taken.
Finally, strengthening government oversight is essential to ensure real safety. The court should require internal and external monitoring, as well as transparency mechanisms that ensure independent assessments of safety outcomes. New Mexico has already proposed an independent child safety monitor, an effective approach in previous antitrust, civil rights, and consumer protection cases.
Meta has argued that the state’s proposed solutions duplicate safety measures they’ve already implemented. These objections ring hollow. The existence of platform safety features is not the same as evidence that they are working.
Company documents released through U.S. litigation show that widely touted safety tools, including parental controls, screen-time management tools, and “take a break” features often have extremely low adoption rates. According to Meta, as of March 2025, only 0.38% of youth users in the U.S. were enrolled in parental supervision programs. Kids, parents, and the public should not have to understand and change platform settings in order to have a safer experience online.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid, who is overseeing the case, requested that Meta and New Mexico be “pragmatic” in their closing statements. While ensuring the safety of kids online will not come from one court case, this case has the potential to shape Meta’s platform and other litigation.
Large civil penalties may punish past conduct, but damages will not, on their own, make social media safer for children. If courts want to reduce harm, they must focus on product design choices, measurable safety outcomes, and governance structures that shape user experiences every day.
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