New Mexico state prosecutors are demanding fundamental changes to Meta's social media platforms to protect children from harm, as a landmark trial enters its second phase following a jury's finding that the tech giant knowingly endangered young users' mental health and concealed child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Opening statements are scheduled today in the three-week bench trial to decide whether Meta's platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, pose a public nuisance under state law. 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.
Sweeping Reforms Sought
Prosecutors are now asking a judge to impose 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, and they are also targeting features such as infinite scroll, push notifications and default settings that show tallies for likes and sharing.
New Mexico 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. The demands represent an effort to address what prosecutors characterize as design choices that prioritize corporate profits over the wellbeing of vulnerable young users.
Corporate Pushback
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. Meta executives have said the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use, and that many of the prosecutors' demands are redundant.
The company 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. Meta also argues that its platforms are being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use, leaving children vulnerable on platforms with less robust protections. The company is invoking free speech protections that have shielded social media for decades.
Legal Precedent at Stake
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."
National Implications
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. 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. 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.
Why This Matters:
This trial represents a critical test of whether democratic institutions can hold powerful technology companies accountable for harms to children that a jury has already found were knowingly inflicted. The $375 million penalty and potential platform redesigns would establish that corporate profit motives cannot override child safety, setting a precedent that could reshape how Big Tech operates nationwide. With more than 40 state attorneys general pursuing similar claims, the outcome could determine whether algorithmic designs that prioritize engagement over wellbeing face meaningful regulatory constraints. The case also challenges decades of legal immunity that have allowed social media companies to avoid responsibility for content and design choices on their platforms, potentially opening a path for stronger public oversight of an industry that has largely operated without democratic accountability despite its profound impact on young people's mental health and safety.