Prince Harry has declared that Meta’s mounting legal defeats represent “what accountability looks like,” after a New Mexico judge imposed an additional $567 million fine on the social media giant for failing to protect children on its platforms.
The ruling, handed down on Thursday, brings the company’s cumulative penalties in the case to $942million, following an earlier $375million fine levied during the first phase of proceedings in March.
“For years we’ve argued that big tech’s harm to children was a choice, not some inevitable side effect. This is not an accident. It is not a glitch,” the Duke of Sussex said in a statement shared with People.
“The bar has moved, and every platform still choosing engagement over safety should take notice. Change cannot wait another day,” he added.
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made children’s online safety a cornerstone of their charitable work through Archewell Philanthropies, while Meghan delivered a speech earlier this year declaring that young people are currently being moulded by platforms “designed to capture attention at any cost”.
When the Los Angeles jury delivered its verdict earlier this year, the couple described it as “a reckoning” for the technology industry, saying: “For too long, families have paid the price for platforms built with total disregard for the children they reach.”
Harry had previously met with families taking legal action against social media firms, telling them: “Truth, justice and accountability – those are the three things that will come from this.”
During his ruling yesterday, Judge Bryan Biedscheid labelled Meta a “public nuisance”.
He drew a striking analogy between the tech firm and a polluting factory, describing its advertising and content as the product whilst characterising “the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children” as noxious emissions requiring abatement.
The harmful effects of Meta’s platforms, the judge argued, do not remain confined to the digital realm but “migrate to the internet as a whole and, perhaps most concerning, to the real world.”
Among the court-ordered child safety measures, Meta must impose a 90-hour monthly usage cap for under-18s across Instagram and Facebook.
Push notifications also must be blocked overnight between 10pm and 7am, and during school hours on weekdays. Adults will be prohibited from messaging minors they do not know.
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The bulk of the financial penalty – some $420 million – has been earmarked for clinical and behavioural health programmes designed to address damage already inflicted on young users by Meta’s platforms.
Meta has signalled its intention to challenge the ruling. “We disagree with the ruling and will appeal,” a company spokesperson said. “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.”
The spokesman added that the company “remain confident in our record of protecting teens online” and would continue contesting what it described as misrepresentations of the facts.
The New Mexico case is far from Meta’s only legal headache. A federal trial is due to commence next week in California, where the first four of 29 states that launched proceedings in 2023 will argue the company deliberately engineered addictive features contributing to a youth mental health crisis.
Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury also found Meta and YouTube liable for negligence in a landmark social media addiction case, ordering $3million in compensatory damages.
Bruce Daisley, formerly Twitter’s European vice president, acknowledged that while the $567million penalty is substantial, it amounts to “a drop in the ocean” for a company that generated $61billion in revenue between April and June alone.
Nevertheless, he suggested the case signals that “social media is going to be tackled around the world.”
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