Facebook owner receives 492 million fine for damages to young people

Na decision issued at the end of Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid said that most of the money – 420 million dollars (364.5 million euros) – will be used in treatment services for young people. The remaining amount will be allocated to awareness-raising and prevention actions, screening services and other costs over the next five years.

This is the second stage of a historical trial that the social media giant lost in March. In the first phase, a jury had set US$375 million (EUR325.5 million) in civil sanctions against the Meta by determining that the company consciously damaged children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

In the second phase, the prosecutors asked the judge to impose fundamental changes to the Meta to halt additive functionalities of their social networks, improve age verification and prevent child sexual exploitation through predefined privacy definitions and stricter supervision.

The decision means that the appearance of Meta platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram networks, can change. The judge ordered that these two networks will have to create warnings and informative screens to clearly explain their protection features, tools to handle inappropriate comments, for example, and to display them regularly. These changes and an educational campaign in New Mexico will be subject to a state review.

“ We disagree with the decision and will appeal”, said a Meta spokesman in a statement released at the end of Thursday.

“ We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and we have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing malicious actors and harmful content. We maintain confidence in our history of protecting teenagers online and will continue to defend ourselves against allegations that distort the facts,” he added.

The court stated that federal child privacy laws prevent the Goal from applying age verification tools to children under the age of 13. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) means that the court may not order the Meta to require children to submit personal data or to be tracked passively online, even for age verification purposes.

The court also pointed out that ordering Meta to verify the age of children only for the Meta itself and not for other social media companies would be “injust and unduly harmful” for the company.

Alternatively, the court ordered Meta to continue improving its age assurance tools in New Mexico, which include using artificial intelligence to determine the age of users based on signs such as the list of friends and the types of content they publish and consume.

The Meta will also have to try to develop a “predictment model of age below 13 years” dedicated in the next two years.

Additionally, Meta should request an age test from Instagram and Facebook users in New Mexico, which is estimated to be under 13. If you determine that a user is under the age of 13 or under the age of 18 but cannot estimate a specific age, the Meta must treat the user as under the age of 13 or under the age of 18 until he checks his age.

The company will also have to establish a partnership with schools or a child safety organisation to create a reporting portal where school staff can signal users who may be under the age of 13, and eliminate the personal information they have collected about minor users

The court also ordered the Meta to report on its progress twice a year on compliance with these mitigation measures.