Per the court ruling [0], the specific law that Meta violated was New Mexico’s public-nuisance law, NMSA 1978 § 30-8-1. The relevant section that was violated is [1]:
A public nuisance consists of knowingly creating, performing or maintaining anything affecting any number of citizens without lawful authority which is either:
- A. injurious to public health, safety, morals or welfare; or
- B. interferes with the exercise and enjoyment of public rights, including the right to use public property.
Whoever commits a public nuisance for which the act or penalty is not otherwise prescribed by law is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.
The judge found that Meta’s operation of Facebook and Instagram created a public nuisance which injured public health, safety, and welfare; and burdened public schools, hospitals, and law enforcement. The judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund to abate the harm done.
The "without lawful authority" condition will result in this being vacated upon appeal. Meta isn't a public nuisance any more than Philip Morris. Both are regulated already, both produce addictive products, both are optional.
These rulings are stupid and if generalized would make doing business impossible. Parents should parent their kids. That law is so board - "public morals"? Should every porn site be taken down?
The world would almost assuredly be a better place if 14 year olds were looking at playboy magazines instead of having easy access to every fetish under the sun. It has distorted many a young man’s ideas of intimacy and sexual relations.
Fetishes aren't what has distorted mens' ideas of intimacy and sexual relations. Fetishes can be a perfectly healthy and consensual form of sexual expression. The problem is the lack of proper sexual education in schools and open dialogue in society because we're limited by Christian taboos to only ever mentioning abstinence until marriage, so porn becomes the only way men learn about sex and intimacy, and they learn to see their own self worth as a function of their sexual prowess, and women as sexual currency.
Kill all the porn sites and you also kill any site that provides education about sex and gender issues (which society won't,) especially for gay and transgender kids, and any site about womens' health issues, because "public morals" tends to consider all of it obscene, inherently pornographic or just "icky."
> The problem is the lack of proper sexual education in schools and open dialogue in society because we're limited by Christian taboos to only ever mentioning abstinence until marriage, so porn becomes the only way men learn about sex and intimacy
The UK has a lot of sex education, no such taboos, and is the home of OnlyFans. Are any of the problems you mention better in the UK than the US?
> Kill all the porn sites and you also kill any site that provides education about sex and gender issues (which society won't,) especially for gay and transgender kids,
I think this is a general misunderstanding of how common law legal systems work.
The extent to which these are or are not generalized is decided by judges based on the merits of individual cases, and while a written law might sound broad the way it's interpreted is up to the accepted precedence.
I suspect a porn site would be ok because it's clearly labelled, and isn't trying to entice kids to engage with it. However if you're social platform deliberately trying to increase engagement with under 18s, and then promoting sexual content to them...
I’m curious the moral basis for which you have appointed yourself more qualified than the adult viewers themselves about what adults should be able to view in their web browser.
They actively spent hundreds of millions of dollars deliberately creating chatbots that would engage in sex acts with minors. It was known to Zuckerberg and approved by him explicitly. That isn't a parenting issue, that is predation at scale.
However you put it, the parent (if around) is the closest and most frequent point of contact for any child. A parent doing an OK job would be a reliable resource whom the child can approach with any questions arising from weird "discoveries" online or even in the community. A parent doing a splendid job would proactively educate their child about the world and it's messiness so said child is equipped to confidently handle much of what pops up. A child should be able to recognize and avoid predation when they encounter it.
Yes. It's ok to say no to porn and gore. I'm tired of acting like we need it to survive otherwise some dystopian genie will be unleashed. Get rid of that shit.
You are of course free to not view it. Why do you think that you should decide for others what they should view? How do you know better than they do, what they should or should not be viewing?
> Why do you think that you should decide for others what they should view?
Why not? Some people decide for others on abortion, some driving, some alcohol and drugs. Some people decide how much the government is allowed to steal from us.
The company must also enact certain safety features such as limiting the amount of time underage users in the state spend on Facebook and Instagram, hiding by default the number of “likes” on photos for such people and disclosing to users there the risks of its platforms.
For users under 18, Meta will eliminate push notifications during night time (10:00 PM to 7:00 AM) on all days; and from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM on school days during the academic year. They will also limit the usage of Facebook and Instagram to 90 hours per month.
TBH, these restrictions will just push kids to use Snapchat.
> They will also limit the usage of Facebook and Instagram to 90 hours per month.
When you consider that the average person is awake for somewhere between 450 and 500 hours per month, 90 hours still represents ~20% of waking time.
For comparison, a K-12 student spends 110-140 hours per month at school. So this is still a ridiculous amount of time for anyone to be spending on social media, teen or adult.
The problem is, what if one of these apps is being used as a messaging app? Hardly social media if most of your usage is just using it to DM friends/family, a la texting.
Parental controls and occasionally sitting down with kids to review social media content together will still always be the correct approach, but it's hard, and the government can't mandate parents take the correct approach when it's so high-friction.
Well, Instagram DMs have entirely replaced sms and phone number exchange for an entire generation. This is like saying “what benefit do teenagers draw from having a phone line?”
Per the court ruling [0], the specific law that Meta violated was New Mexico’s public-nuisance law, NMSA 1978 § 30-8-1. The relevant section that was violated is [1]:
A public nuisance consists of knowingly creating, performing or maintaining anything affecting any number of citizens without lawful authority which is either:
- A. injurious to public health, safety, morals or welfare; or
- B. interferes with the exercise and enjoyment of public rights, including the right to use public property.
Whoever commits a public nuisance for which the act or penalty is not otherwise prescribed by law is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.
The judge found that Meta’s operation of Facebook and Instagram created a public nuisance which injured public health, safety, and welfare; and burdened public schools, hospitals, and law enforcement. The judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund to abate the harm done.
[0] https://www.kob.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/D-101-CV-2023...
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-30/article-8...
The "without lawful authority" condition will result in this being vacated upon appeal. Meta isn't a public nuisance any more than Philip Morris. Both are regulated already, both produce addictive products, both are optional.
These rulings are stupid and if generalized would make doing business impossible. Parents should parent their kids. That law is so board - "public morals"? Should every porn site be taken down?
The world would almost assuredly be a better place if 14 year olds were looking at playboy magazines instead of having easy access to every fetish under the sun. It has distorted many a young man’s ideas of intimacy and sexual relations.
"Playboy magazines" are part of the problem.
Fetishes aren't what has distorted mens' ideas of intimacy and sexual relations. Fetishes can be a perfectly healthy and consensual form of sexual expression. The problem is the lack of proper sexual education in schools and open dialogue in society because we're limited by Christian taboos to only ever mentioning abstinence until marriage, so porn becomes the only way men learn about sex and intimacy, and they learn to see their own self worth as a function of their sexual prowess, and women as sexual currency.
Kill all the porn sites and you also kill any site that provides education about sex and gender issues (which society won't,) especially for gay and transgender kids, and any site about womens' health issues, because "public morals" tends to consider all of it obscene, inherently pornographic or just "icky."
> The problem is the lack of proper sexual education in schools and open dialogue in society because we're limited by Christian taboos to only ever mentioning abstinence until marriage, so porn becomes the only way men learn about sex and intimacy
The UK has a lot of sex education, no such taboos, and is the home of OnlyFans. Are any of the problems you mention better in the UK than the US?
> Kill all the porn sites and you also kill any site that provides education about sex and gender issues (which society won't,) especially for gay and transgender kids,
There is no reason this has to be true.
Huge blind spot to think that content only affects men’s view of intimacy and sexual relations
Explain that one for the class
Its a common conception but today is your lucky day to articulate it
I think this is a general misunderstanding of how common law legal systems work.
The extent to which these are or are not generalized is decided by judges based on the merits of individual cases, and while a written law might sound broad the way it's interpreted is up to the accepted precedence.
I suspect a porn site would be ok because it's clearly labelled, and isn't trying to entice kids to engage with it. However if you're social platform deliberately trying to increase engagement with under 18s, and then promoting sexual content to them...
Yes they should, but guess what they’re doing instead? Scrolling.
Engagement algorithm needs to be made illegal.
Ah yes, the good old "cigarettes and alcohol should be freely available to kids" lobby logic, like it's the 60s and 70s again.
> Should every porn site be taken down?
I mean, I like porn as much as the next guy, but probably yes?
I’m curious the moral basis for which you have appointed yourself more qualified than the adult viewers themselves about what adults should be able to view in their web browser.
I find it amusing that you think that anyone trying to declare themselves an authority does so on a moral basis.
They actively spent hundreds of millions of dollars deliberately creating chatbots that would engage in sex acts with minors. It was known to Zuckerberg and approved by him explicitly. That isn't a parenting issue, that is predation at scale.
However you put it, the parent (if around) is the closest and most frequent point of contact for any child. A parent doing an OK job would be a reliable resource whom the child can approach with any questions arising from weird "discoveries" online or even in the community. A parent doing a splendid job would proactively educate their child about the world and it's messiness so said child is equipped to confidently handle much of what pops up. A child should be able to recognize and avoid predation when they encounter it.
Yes. It's ok to say no to porn and gore. I'm tired of acting like we need it to survive otherwise some dystopian genie will be unleashed. Get rid of that shit.
You are of course free to not view it. Why do you think that you should decide for others what they should view? How do you know better than they do, what they should or should not be viewing?
> Why do you think that you should decide for others what they should view?
Why not? Some people decide for others on abortion, some driving, some alcohol and drugs. Some people decide how much the government is allowed to steal from us.
Why wouldn’t I think I should decide for others?
Is there also a sort-of injunction to stop doing x y z? Or is just existing as a social media company a public nuisance?
From the article:
The company must also enact certain safety features such as limiting the amount of time underage users in the state spend on Facebook and Instagram, hiding by default the number of “likes” on photos for such people and disclosing to users there the risks of its platforms.
For users under 18, Meta will eliminate push notifications during night time (10:00 PM to 7:00 AM) on all days; and from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM on school days during the academic year. They will also limit the usage of Facebook and Instagram to 90 hours per month.
TBH, these restrictions will just push kids to use Snapchat.
> They will also limit the usage of Facebook and Instagram to 90 hours per month.
When you consider that the average person is awake for somewhere between 450 and 500 hours per month, 90 hours still represents ~20% of waking time.
For comparison, a K-12 student spends 110-140 hours per month at school. So this is still a ridiculous amount of time for anyone to be spending on social media, teen or adult.
The problem is, what if one of these apps is being used as a messaging app? Hardly social media if most of your usage is just using it to DM friends/family, a la texting.
Parental controls and occasionally sitting down with kids to review social media content together will still always be the correct approach, but it's hard, and the government can't mandate parents take the correct approach when it's so high-friction.
Nice to read about, but will be appealed to eternity.
I wonder how many billions it would take every year for this to not just be considered "cost of doing business"?
This is the "slap on the wrist, don't do it again".
A future judge will not be so kind if they keep doing it.
Being punitive the first time is unwise because it invites abuse by others seeking an advantage.
> Being punitive the first time is unwise
I'm not so sure this is the first time. 100th, maybe.
Hmm, idk why the downvotes. Maybe from people who don't know how to use google? Took me 5 seconds to find several more from this year alone.
2026: https://apnews.com/article/meta-court-ruling-mental-health-o...
2026: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/24/meta-new-...
How many more "first times" shall we give them?
What benefit do kids draw from instagram and facebook?
There's a lot of benefit, but its all to META shareholders...
Well, Instagram DMs have entirely replaced sms and phone number exchange for an entire generation. This is like saying “what benefit do teenagers draw from having a phone line?”
sure. can't wait for the checks.