Judge Orders Meta to Create $567M Abatement Fund for Child Harms in New Mexico

Phaedra Haywood, the Santa Fe New Mexican: A state district judge in Santa Fe on Thursday ordered social media giant Meta Platforms Inc. to pay $567 million into an abatement fund to address public harm to New Mexico children and teens. Judge Bryan Biedscheid’s ruling resolves the second of a two-part civil proceeding in a landmark case filed in 2023 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who argued Meta’s social media platforms have led to a youth mental health crisis in the state and have exposed kids to exploitation by sexual predators. This is in addition to a $375 million penalty issued by a jury in March. The judge’s orders are worth reading, I think, because they show the careful reasoning that guided the state’s new requirements of Meta. People like Eric Goldman and Techdirt’s Mike Masnick who worried that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would be fundamentally undermined by the verdict of this case might be pleased. For example, the judge declined to mandate…