A Jury Hit Meta With a $375 Million Verdict. The Open Internet May Pay the Price.
Meta's loss in a New Mexico "product design" case could also be a blow against Section 230, free speech, and online privacy.
Meta has been ordered to pay New Mexico $375 million, in a verdict that paves the way for more states to steal from social media companies under the guise of child protection—and demand changes that will compromise everyone's online speech and privacy.
In the lawsuit, New Mexico authorities accused Meta—parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—of violating the state's Unfair Practices Act.
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States accusing tech platforms of violating consumer protection laws have been a big trend lately. This ruling all but ensures it will intensify, and that's dangerous. It opens up a new way for authorities to regulate and sanction online platforms for their users' speech.
A Way Around Section 230
Section 230 of the Communications Act is supposed to protect against this sort of thing. If someone uses Facebook to engage in illegal activity, it's that person—not Meta—who may be criminally liable or face penalties. The speaker of the illegal speech is guilty, not the platform.
State attorneys general have been fighting against this paradigm for nearly two decades. It means they're stuck prosecuting individual criminals—a task paramount to public safety, but not great at garnering massive payouts to state coffers or getting national attention.
Section 230—and the First Amendment rights that it protects—have generally barred the sort of high-profile, high-profit lawsuits against tech companies that state authorities have been hankering for. But Section 230 (and the First Amendment) only apply when we're talking about actions involving speech.
If authorities can convince juries and judges that what they're really targeting is product design, all bets are off.
So, that's what we're seeing, in New Mexico v. Meta and countless other cases.
New Mexico argued that the design of Meta products exposed minors to psychological dangers, sexual content, and potential predators.
The verdict in this case is "a really problematic result and if it holds will be terrible for the open internet," commented Techdirt editor in chief Mike Masnick on Bluesky. "This case easily should have been tossed on 230 grounds. That it wasn't means Section 230 is that much weaker today."
Forcing Platforms To Be Censors
"Product liability is generally imposed…on tangible 'products' (think brakes, tires, dishwashers, etc.) with inherent and unreasonable dangers that are hidden to consumers," noted Tyler Tone of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in a recent post about chatbot liability.
A book that unexpectedly explodes upon opening it would be good grounds for a product liability claim; a book whose content inspires someone to act recklessly should not.
Courts have repeatedly rejected the notion that intangible ideas or messages within an entertainment or media product are grounds for product liability claims—and with good reason. "Imposing liability for 'dangerous' ideas would set us down a dark path; every author and publisher would have to make sure that the ideas they put out in the world couldn't possibly be interpreted or used to some harmful end," writes Tone. "If you've ever met other human beings, you already know that the list of such ideas is…quite short."
In New Mexico v. Meta, many of the state's objections are so clearly about speech that it's absurd to pretend otherwise. What is it that supposedly causes "addiction" if not the content that teens encounter on these platforms? What is it that allowed New Mexico authorities to pose as a 13-year-old girl and receive private messages if not a neutral communications platform? What are the features that New Mexico complains about—like livestreaming and ephemeral content and filters—but tools for user expression?
And what else are social media platforms supposed to do if suits like these keep succeeding but make sure that the ideas their users put out in the world couldn't possibly be interpreted or used to some harmful end?
As with regulating the ideas in books, the end result would be to limit everyone's access to ideas and communications online.
Every plaintiffs lawyer who wants to get around 230 claims "it's the platform design" but none of their design complaints matter absent the content. It's nonsense. These are attacks on speech.
Impossible Standards and Far-Reaching Solutions
Not all of the speech that New Mexico objects to is protected speech. For instance, an adult sending sexual images to a minor is not protected. But in such cases, it's the predatory adult who breaks the law, not a neutral messaging platform that has no knowledge of such communications (and may expect, based on what a user indicated when creating an account, that the user is older).
The fact that people expect Meta to somehow stop all predators or face liability showcases the weird double standards they place on social media platforms.
Minors also encounter potentially distressing ideas and images in magazines, movies, TV, and books, but you don't see anyone accusing publishers and movie studios and TV networks of "unfair practices" that harm teens' mental health. Criminals also use telephone calls and text messages and emails to reach potential victims, but you don't see anyone accusing phone companies and email providers of faulty product design. Streaming services also use algorithmic recommendations and you don't see suits accusing them of promoting addiction.
Meanwhile, the solutions proposed in social media cases like this one go far beyond targeting bad actors or explicitly illegal speech.
New Mexico is asking Meta to enact age-verification protocols and restrict encrypted communications—moves that make it easier for the government to monitor everyone's speech and connect any account on these platforms to its owner's offline identity (in addition to exposing adults and minors alike to identity thieves, scammers, and other bad actors online).
Yesterday's jury ruling came after the first part of this trial—and represents a significant deviation from what the state wanted. In closing arguments, it asked jurors to slap Meta with a $2 billion fine.
"A second phase of the trial with follow with a judge deciding whether Meta created a public nuisance and should be on the hook financially to fund programs to address alleged harms to children," the Associated Press reports.
Meta has said it will appeal the New Mexico verdict.
This case also comes amid a wave of social media "addiction" lawsuits, including a jury trial that just wrapped in Los Angeles.
In The News
Who needs a warrant when bulk buying of data is possible? "After a 2015 change to [Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], federal agencies are not supposed to collect data on U.S. citizens in bulk," notes NPR. "But some found a workaround to requesting warrants by simply buying the data instead." Will Congress close the loophole?
Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the upcoming FISA reauthorization debate is the best chance to close the so-called "data broker loophole" that federal agencies are using to purchase the kind of bulk data that Congress has already banned them from collecting themselves.
"This is very likely the only chance that Congress has this year to vote for meaningful privacy protections," said Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress, an advocacy group that has helped bring together an unusual coalition supporting federal surveillance reforms with backers from opposite sides of the political spectrum.
He added, without reform, "The Trump administration is walking around with the most dangerous surveillance powers in recent history," given recent advances in AI, expanding use of data from brokers and changes to FISA that Congress passed in 2024.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) along with conservative Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), teamed up with Democrats Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Wyden on bicameral bipartisan FISA reform legislation that would end the data broker loophole among several other reforms.
The bill may have bipartisan support, but it also has bipartisan opposition. "The White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson are both pushing for a clean reauthorization of FISA that would include no changes, and there are some Democrats who have indicated they support that plan to ensure the law does not lapse," notes NPR. And as The Intercept points out, "figures from the Democratic establishment have often been ambivalent or openly hostile to reforming the law."
On Substack
"Protecting teens shouldn't require permission to speak." In the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) newsletter, 20-year-old Zoe Armbruster suggests that the "youth mental health" framing around free speech restrictions is a smokescreen.
The real question isn't just teen safety, but this: Is the United States willing to normalize a permission-based internet?
My generation understands the downsides of social media. We have experienced comparison culture and digital pressure. But we have also used these platforms to organize protests, build communities, share stories, and participate in civic life. Social media is not merely entertainment. It is a modern public square, and when we understand it in those terms it's clear why we cannot tolerate government intervention that censors speech and decimates anonymity.
Protecting teens is essential. Preserving free expression is essential, too. The vast majority of even "harmful" speech on social media is still protected speech that minors have a First Amendment right to access. If access to the public square increasingly depends on proving who you are before you speak, we may address one problem while creating another: a more monitored, less anonymous, and ultimately less free digital environment for everyone.
Read This Thread
Are AI outputs free speech under the First Amendment? Yes.
AI is polling down there with ICE and the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, I'm like Butters in South Park, unironically marveling at how awesome it is.
So maybe I'm just asking for a ratio, but I wrote a whole big paper… pic.twitter.com/Z8Mn9GFQWV
— Corbin K. Barthold (@corbinkbarthold) March 23, 2026
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