Facebook and Instagram owner Meta is paying the price for its “cavalier approach” towards children’s online safety, say UK campaigners after the tech giant was ordered to payout a further 567 million dollars (£421 million) for failings by a US court.
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 landmark case brought by New Mexico, which the social media company lost in March.
The charity he set up in her memory and chairs, the Molly Rose Foundation, has said it expects the stateside ruling “will be the first of many dominoes to fall”, with a wave of legal challenges being brought against tech firms.
Jurors had previously ordered that Meta be fined 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.
A New Mexico court has now ruled that the firm pays the additional sum to address the suffering caused to youngsters by its sites.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid said most of the money – 420 million dollars (£312 million) – should be used for treatment services, with the remainder directed towards awareness and prevention, as well as 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.
“We applaud New Mexico for standing up for children and families and making clear that time is running out for Meta’s harmful business models and reckless decisions.
“This decision will be the first of many dominoes to fall and it offers real hope that the tide may be starting to turn after a decade in which Big Tech has been able to offer harmful products to children with relative impunity.”
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.
“A court has looked at how these platforms are built, at the way children are pushed towards harm by design, and concluded that the damage is so widespread that it must fine Meta nearly a billion dollars in one case alone.
“Every parent who has lost a child will understand what it means to hear a judge say plainly what we have been saying for years.”
She argued the UK Government “must take notice” as it developed its social media ban for under-16s, which is set to come into force by next spring.
Ms 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. So the new age limit regime has to be strong enough, with penalties large enough, that compliance becomes the cheaper option.
“Anything less and we will be back here in a few years having the same argument, with tragically more families in our position.”
Meanwhile, 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 – 942 million dollars (£698 million) – is only a fraction of its annual profit, which amounted to around 60 billion dollars (£44.5 billion) in 2025.
