As New Mexico lawmakers Wednesday mulled the next steps in the state’s win in its case against Meta, the social media giant announced a near-nationwide agreement strengthening teen protections and parental controls on Instagram and Facebook.
The agreement, made with a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general across the U.S. and its territories — not including New Mexico and Florida — came as Meta reached a $17 billion settlement in a multistate lawsuit over children and teen social media addiction claims.
News of the agreement spread as members of the New Mexico Legislature’s interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee heard a presentation about the state’s own lawsuit against the company, which ended earlier this month when First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid in Santa Fe ordered Meta to pay $567 million for a youth harm abatement fund. That verdict was on top of a $375 million civil penalty awarded by a jury.
The jury also found Meta had exposed New Mexico children to sexual predators and failed to warn consumers about the potential dangers of using its platforms — particularly Facebook and Instagram.
Meta has said it intends to file an appeal in the case, though it had not yet done so by Wednesday.
Last week, lawyers for the company asked Biedscheid to allow Meta to post a $1.8 billion bond to stop collection of the judgment while the appeal is pending.
Appeals in civil cases are typically due within 30 days of a ruling, which Biedscheid entered Aug. 6.
After the state Department of Justice’s presentation Wednesday, Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, asked senior counsel Steven Perfrement why New Mexico was not “better off” joining other states’ efforts, “and why your effort to continue carrying this through courts is going to better protect our children.”
Perfrement said there is overlap between changes in the multistate settlement and the requirements for Meta under New Mexico’s injunction. Both call for Facebook and Instagram to block push notifications overnight and during school hours, for example.
But there are some differences: The settlement features a default two-hour time limit for accounts made by children and teens under 18, while New Mexico will require Meta to enforce a monthly limit of 90 hours — about three hours per day.
“We will have digital funds to alleviate the harms that this has caused, and we will have most of the injunctive relief that they have,” Perfrement said. “We have a couple of things that they didn’t get through their settlement, and frankly, what they get in this settlement will most certainly be provided just for the platform in general to New Mexico, because it’s difficult for them to geographically gate on a micro basis.”
Meta said in a statement Wednesday the new social media protections under the multistate settlement will automatically apply in participating states and territories, pending judicial approval. These protections also include hidden likes — something New Mexico will require, too — and regular prompts every 15 minutes a teen is using a Meta platform.
Rep. Eleanor Chávez, an Albuquerque Democrat, asked whether the New Mexico Department of Justice achieved the same 10-year rollout period for payments and most of the terms in the multistate settlement.
“That is one place where there looks like they’ve got a longer runway than we do,” Perfrement said.
New Mexico’s “supervised reform” of Meta’s practices will stretch five years, which is also the period when the money in the youth harm abatement fund must be spent.
Department of Justice spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez said in a statement Torrez declined to join the multistate litigation and instead initiated New Mexico’s own case against Meta — which resulted in a favorable victory.
“While the Attorney General applauds the recently announced settlement reached by 47 other states,” she said, “we would note New Mexico’s trial verdict resulted in a per capita recovery that is more than 8 times higher than it would have been in the multi-state litigation and includes much stronger injunctive terms including a direct ban on romantic and sexualized AI chatbot interactions with minors, safeguards against adults targeting kids in private messages and enforceable requirements to better manage referrals related to child exploitation.”
The Department of Justice recommended lawmakers consider developing a “comprehensive social media safety bill,” though Perfrement said the question of what that might look like was “above my pay grade; I just sue people.”
“I guess I’m just going to talk to my colleagues, I suppose — just send 70 emails in the House and 42 in the Senate and see what we can do,” said Rep. John Block, an Alamogordo Republican.
