Social media conglomerate Meta faces a $375 million penalty after a New Mexico jury decided that the company could be held liable for not doing enough to protect children from sexually explicit content.
That decision came at the end of a landmark seven-week trial that tested a legal cornerstone of the internet age: Can platforms be punished for content and speech created by users? The jury in New Mexico said that Meta—the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and the WhatsApp messaging service—had violated a state law banning deceiving or misleading business acts.
