Jury Hits Meta With $375 Million Penalty in Child Safety Case

The jury reached its decision just one day after closing arguments, finding Meta guilty on every count brought by the state. While the $375 million award falls short of the $2 billion initially sought by prosecutors, it represents the maximum fine of $5,000 per violation across 75,000 instances. Attorney General Raúl Torrez championed the case, which relied on undercover investigations where state officials created decoy accounts to demonstrate how easily predators could access child profiles on Facebook.

Meta rejected the outcome, claiming the investigation was fundamentally flawed and maintaining that its safety protocols are robust. This ruling sets a precedent for a wave of similar litigation currently pending across the country. A closely watched case in Los Angeles involving Meta and Google’s YouTube remains in deliberations, signaling that the tech industry faces mounting pressure to answer for the design of its algorithms and safety infrastructure.