Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has been ordered to pay a further 567 million dollars (£421 million) by a US court for failings related to children's online safety, bringing the total penalties to 942 million dollars (£698 million). UK campaigners say the tech giant is paying the price for its “cavalier approach” towards children's safety.
Landmark case brought by New Mexico
The additional sum was ordered by a New Mexico court, following a landmark case that Meta lost in March. Ian Russell, the father of 14-year-old Molly, from Harrow, London, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content, gave evidence in the case.
The Molly Rose Foundation, the charity set up in her memory, said it expects the ruling “will be the first of many dominoes to fall”, with a wave of legal challenges being brought against tech firms.
Jury verdict and additional ruling
Jurors had previously ordered Meta to pay 375 million dollars (£278 million) after finding that it knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that most of the additional money – 420 million dollars (£312 million) – should be used for treatment services, with the remainder directed towards awareness, prevention, and screening.
Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, said: “This landmark fine sends a powerful message that Meta’s cavalier approach to children’s safety and mental health has consequences, and that tech firms should rightly expect punitive sanctions if they continue to put profit before the safety of young people.”
Campaigners' reaction
Ellen Roome, from Gloucestershire, who believes her 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney died while attempting an online challenge in 2022, said: “This ruling is a big step in the global effort to end the uncontrolled experiment on our children.” She argued the UK Government “must take notice” as it develops its social media ban for under-16s, set to come into force by next spring.
Roome added: “These companies have never changed when they were shown the evidence of harm, or when bereaved parents like me sat in front of them and explained what had happened to our children. They react to force and force alone.”
Meta vows to appeal
Meta has vowed to appeal against the New Mexico ruling. The company said in a statement: “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”
The total penalties faced by Meta are only a fraction of its annual profit, which amounted to around 60 billion dollars (£44.5 billion) in 2025.
