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Meta’s historic loss in court could cost a lot more than $375 million

2026-05-02T14:24:39-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez won a historic sum of $375 million in a landmark child safety case against Meta earlier this year. But the next stage of the fight could be even more consequential for Meta and the social media industry at large.

Beginning Monday, attorneys for Meta and New Mexico will return to a Santa Fe courthouse for a three-week public nuisance trial, where they'll argue over the changes the AG wants the judge to order Meta make to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Those changes include adding age verification for New Mexico users, prohibiting end-to-end encryption for users under 18 and capping their use to 90 …

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Meta threatens to pull its apps from New Mexico if forced to make ‘technologically impractical’ changes

2026-04-30T15:05:01-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Meta says it may be forced to pull Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from New Mexico if the attorney general gets his way. The state is demanding a host of changes that the company says are impossible to achieve.

After winning a $375 million jury award against Meta in a trial that argued the company misled users in the state about the safety of its products, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is asking the state court to order sweeping changes to the platforms. Among the asks are a prohibition on end-to-end encryption for minors, implementing age verification, and detecting 99 percent of new child sexual abuse material uploaded to its …

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Former FCC staffers agree: Brendan Carr needs to be stopped

2026-04-28T13:06:42-04:00

Several former Federal Communications Commissioners and staffers across parties are urging a federal appeals court to force a vote on the FCC's news distortion policy, which they argue should be repealed after being abused by Republican Chair Brendan Carr.

On Tuesday, a group of petitioners asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to require the FCC to vote on a petition to repeal the News Distortion Policy. The petition was filed by the bipartisan group of former officials in November of 2025, after Carr invoked the rule to pressure ABC into temporarily suspending comedian Jimmy Kimmel. But only the agency chair can bring …

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Age verification is a mess but we’re doing it anyway

2026-04-16T10:03:10-04:00

In the span of a few years, age verification went from an idea to standard practice on large parts of the internet. Seeking to prevent kids from accessing porn, other inappropriate content, or social media altogether, laws mandating age-gating have spread rapidly across the globe, reaching the UK, the US, Australia, France, Brazil, and many more countries. The problem comes in with exactly how to check that a user isn't lying about their stated age. Unfortunately, every method politicians have settled on has significant flaws - and though experts have ideas to improve on them, these remain just concepts for now.

One popular method is age i …

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Wisconsin governor says ‘no’ to age checks for porn

2026-04-06T18:32:37-04:00

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill that would've required residents to verify their age before accessing porn sites, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a letter to the members of the assembly last week, Evers writes that the bill "imposes an intrusive burden on adults who are trying to access constitutionally protected materials."

The bill (AB 105) would've required sites with more than one-third of their total content deemed harmful to minors to impose a "reasonable" form of age verification, such as asking users to show their government-issued ID. More than two dozen states have already passed similar age check requirements for acc …

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Meta’s legal defeat could be a victory for children, or a loss for everyone

2026-04-03T11:59:14-04:00

Is social media not just bad, but illegally bad? Should tech companies pay for making it that way? According to two US juries - and no shortage of outside commentary - the answer to both questions is "yes."

Earlier this week, two juries - one in New Mexico, one in Los Angeles - held Meta liable for a total of hundreds of millions of dollars for harming minors. YouTube was also found liable in Los Angeles, and both companies are appealing their losses. In one sense, the decisions were surprising. Meta and Google operate platforms for transmitting speech and are typically protected in a variety of ways by Section 230 and the First Amendment; …

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Brendan Carr says his broadcast license threat wasn’t really about Iran war coverage

2026-03-27T09:51:42-04:00

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr never meant to threaten broadcast licenses over their coverage of the war in Iran, he told reporters after an event hosted by FGS and Semafor.

"My comments weren't actually on the Iran war," Carr said in response to a question from The Verge about his statement regarding coverage of the war. "I understand why people say that. I made a statement quoting a tweet."

On March 14th, Carr quote-tweeted a screenshot of a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump, who had bemoaned "an intentionally misleading headline" related to the US military action in the Middle East. "Broadcasters that a …

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Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

2026-03-25T16:26:38-04:00

The jury in a landmark trial testing claims about social media addiction against Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube determined that the two companies failed to warn users about the risks of using their products. The jury found the companies' negligence was a substantial factor in harms like the mental health issues sustained by a now 20-year-old woman Kaley G.M., who used Instagram and YouTube.

The jury ordered both companies to pay a total of $3 million in compensatory damages, with Meta responsible for 70 percent of that balance, according to jurors' responses shared by a firm representing plaintiffs including Kaley. Jurors found that …

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Meta misled users about its products’ safety, jury decides

2026-03-24T17:54:29-04:00

Meta willfully violated New Mexico law by misleading users about the safety of its products and engaging in an unconscionable trade practice, a jury found. The company will face a $375 million penalty for the violations, awarding the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation for 37,500 violations across two counts. The jury decided against Meta on every count, though it declined to award a penalty as high as the state sought, which would have been closer to $2 billion.

It's a landmark verdict delivered just one day after closing arguments. New Mexico argued that Meta had flouted state law by misleading consumers and facilitating child predato …

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Meta’s reckoning over kids safety is in the hands of two juries

2026-03-24T10:56:31-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: The Verge | Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Two juries are currently deliberating a series of cases that could either usher in a legal reckoning for Meta, or maintain the status quo in an uphill battle to impose changes or penalties on tech platforms in court.

Yesterday, a New Mexico jury heard closing arguments in a trial where Meta is accused of facilitating child predators on its platforms - allegations the company vehemently denies. And as soon as today, a Los Angeles jury is tentatively expected to reach a verdict in a separate case, which concerns whether Meta and Google should be held liable for making defective products that addicted a young woman. Verdicts against the compa …

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