New Mexico state prosecutors are seeking fundamental changes to Meta's social media apps and algorithms to safeguard children in the second phase of a landmark trial over allegations that platforms such as Instagram have created a public safety hazard. Opening statements are scheduled Monday in the three-week bench trial, where the state is asking a judge to force changes on a company whose platforms also include Facebook and WhatsApp.
Who Pays for the Platform
The people at the bottom of this setup are children, and the state says they have already paid the price. In the first phase, jurors ordered $375 million in civil penalties against Meta, finding that it knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. That verdict is now the foundation for a second phase aimed at changing how the company operates, not just making it pay.
New Mexico prosecutors are asking for changes aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight. They want Meta to redesign algorithms so content recommendations no longer prioritize constant engagement. They are also targeting features such as infinite scroll, push notifications and default settings that show tallies for likes and sharing.
The state also wants child accounts on Meta platforms to have an associated parent or guardian and seeks a court-supervised child safety monitor to track improvements over time. In other words, the apparatus that already failed to protect children is being asked to supervise itself under court order, because the damage has already been done.
What the Company Says
Meta has vowed to appeal the jury verdict and warned that it could eliminate Instagram and Facebook service in New Mexico if forced to comply with impractical mandates. The company says it continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use, and that many of the prosecutors' demands are redundant. Meta also plans to call technical experts as witnesses and says the demands are impractical if not impossible and would force it to disregard the realities of the internet.
The company argues that its platforms are being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use, leaving children vulnerable on platforms with less robust protections. Meta is also invoking free speech protections that have shielded social media for decades. That is the familiar corporate move: present the platform as unavoidable, present regulation as impossible, and present the company as the only adult in the room while children absorb the consequences.
The Legal Machinery Around the Damage
The case is the first to reach trial among lawsuits filed by more than 40 state attorneys general on allegations that Meta contributes to a youth mental health crisis. Opening statements in the second phase are scheduled Monday in the three-week bench trial. The first phase of the trial included six weeks of testimony from teachers, psychiatric experts, state investigators, top Meta officials and whistleblowers who left the company.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the jury verdict punctured the aura of invincibility protecting tech companies from liability for material on their platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act. He said the case puts New Mexico in a unique position not only to try and change the paradigm of how this company does business, but also how Big Tech generally is expected to do business going forward.
Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California, said, 'The fact that we're having a trial on nuisance is itself a remarkable outcome.' He added, 'That theory is not well accepted as applied to the internet, and that theory doesn't really fit the internet.' Goldman also said prosecutors may be venturing into uncertain legal waters by seeking age verification mandates, saying, 'In practice a court order saying that Facebook had to impose age authentication would have no Supreme Court textual support.' He added, 'The Supreme Court might bless it. We don't know.'
A recording of Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's deposition was played for jurors on March 4, 2026, in Santa Fe, N.M., and visitors were photographed taking pictures at a sign outside Meta headquarters on March 26, 2026, in Menlo Park, Calif. Those moments sit at opposite ends of the machine: one inside the courtroom, one outside the headquarters, while the fight over who gets to shape children's digital lives moves through the legal system.