After a $942M Win Over Meta, New Mexico AG Seeks New Laws to Regulate Platforms and AI

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, fresh from a landmark $942 million judgment against Meta, is pushing two bills to convert that court victory into broader, enforceable law. The proposed measures would strengthen online child-safety protections, expand consumer-protection tools, and explicitly bring artificial intelligence systems and chatbots within the state's regulatory reach.

Judgment and Court Orders

The $942 million judgment was issued in two parts: a seven-week jury trial in March that found Meta liable under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act for misleading users about platform safety and failing to protect children from mental-health harms and sexual exploitation. The jury assessed the maximum statutory civil penalty of $375 million. In August, a judge added $567 million, primarily earmarked for youth mental-health treatment, prevention, and screening programs.

The court also imposed five years of operational reforms on Meta, including age-verification initiatives, enhanced safeguards against child exploitation, limits on overnight push notifications, and mandatory time-use restrictions for users under 18. However, the judge declined to appoint an independent child-safety monitor and refused to order the decryption of Facebook Messenger conversations, noting that several broader remedies were better addressed by legislators.

Evidence and Investigation

The case began with an undercover operation by Torrez’s office called Operation MetaPhile. Investigators created decoy Facebook and Instagram accounts posing as minors — some under 13 or 14 — and reported receiving sexual messages, explicit content requests, and contacts from adults allegedly seeking exploitation. Prosecutors said Meta’s recommendation algorithms steered those accounts toward unmoderated groups linked to commercial sex, and said a fabricated parent account could create a page offering a 13-year-old for trafficking and monetize it.

Discovery produced internal Meta documents that proved damaging in court. Jurors heard a 2019 internal email to Instagram head Adam Mosseri from a product-team member stating Instagram had become "the leading two-sided marketplace for human trafficking." Torrez characterized the internal record as unusually detailed for corporate misconduct investigations.

Meta’s Response and Appeals

Meta disputes the verdict and has appealed. The company points to billions invested in safety technology and says it removed 36 million pieces of child sexual-exploitation content from Facebook and Instagram in 2025, citing proactive detection tools and protections for teen accounts. Mosseri testified, "We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it." Meta has also warned of wide-ranging damages estimates across multi-state litigation, filing a court estimate that total potential damages could exceed $1.4 trillion — an estimate, not an award.

Torrez has also said Meta threatened to block access to its platforms in New Mexico before the second phase of the trial, a claim the company has disputed; whether any formal action was taken remains unclear.

Legislative Push: Two Proposed Bills

Responding to limitations in the court’s remedies, Torrez is working with state lawmakers on two bills expected in the coming weeks. Key elements described by his office include:

• Extending New Mexico's consumer-protection framework to explicitly cover AI systems and chatbots;
• Removing existing caps on civil penalties under state consumer-protection law to increase enforcement leverage;
• Creating clearer obligations for platforms on age verification, content moderation, and youth protections to address technological developments.

Torrez has discussed the measures with former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who supports the push. He has argued that federal action has stalled and that state-level reform is necessary to close gaps left by courts and federal lawmakers.

What’s Next

Torrez’s office also expects to file suit against an unnamed AI company in the near future related to reports that children formed emotional attachments to a chatbot; details have not been released. Meanwhile, a separate 29-state federal case against Meta was scheduled to begin in Oakland, and New Mexico has a second case against Meta — focused on data privacy and civic harm — set for trial in September.

All court-ordered reforms remain subject to change while appeals proceed. The two bills still need legislative sponsors and a path through the New Mexico Legislature. Torrez says his goal is to build a template other states, municipalities, school districts, and private plaintiffs can replicate.

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