A New Mexico judge denied Meta’s request to postpone a bench trial in New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s ongoing case against the social media giant. In an announcement Thursday, Torrez said the decision paves the way for “the most comprehensive court-ordered child safety protections ever imposed on a social media company.”
A Santa Fe jury already found Meta to have committed 75,000 violations of state law and ordered the company to pay the state $375 million in damages. Torrez’s New Mexico Department of Justice filed the lawsuit in 2023 and accused Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — of violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act and misleading the public about the mental health risks and sexual exploitation facing teen users.
Company representatives have said they plan to appeal the verdict.
First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid is set to hear the state’s public nuisance claim on May 4 and will weigh how Meta can mitigate the practices a jury found to violate state law, the New Mexico Department of Justice announced Thursday.
“Meta has spent years dodging responsibility for the damage its platforms cause to children,” Torrez said in a statement. “They failed to get this case thrown out. They lost at trial. Now the court has told them they cannot run from what comes next. On May 4, we will seek the strongest child safety protections ever proposed against a social media company — and we will ask this court to order Meta to comply.”
In a statement, the NMDOJ wrote that it will seek an injunction to “fundamentally restructure how Meta operates for children.” In addition to banning “addictive” features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay and push notifications during school and sleep hours, Torrez’s department announced it would also seek to set a monthly cap of 90 hours of Meta platform access for New Mexico kids.
Under the NMDOJ proposal, the number of likes and shares on posts would not display for minor users. Children’s accounts would be private by default and would require an associated guardian account. Meta would also need to implement a “99% detection rate” for posted child sexual abuse material.
Torrez’s proposal would also require Meta to pay for a court-appointed child safety monitor to oversee compliance, vet complaints and publish public reports on the matter.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
