New Mexico's Raúl Torrez Drafts Social Media Safety Laws After $942M Court Victory Against Meta

New Mexico's attorney general pushes new social media safety laws after $900m court victory over Meta

Exclusive: Raúl Torrez is drafting two bills with state lawmakers to bolster consumer protections and child safety online, building on state's landmark case against Meta New Mexico's attorney general is mounting a full-court press against technology companies to improve their child safety measures, capitalizing on a landmark win in court against Meta earlier this year. Raúl Torrez is working with state lawmakers to draft two new bills he says will strengthen consumer protections and child safety online. The legislation, expected to be announced in the coming weeks, will build on the state's case against the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. A jury found in March that the company misled its users about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation. The social media giant was fined nearly $1bn as a result of the case. The trial was the first to hold Meta liable for harmful acts committed on its platforms. It followed a 2023 Guardian investigation that exposed how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking. Torrez is pursuing additional lawsuits, including a second case against Meta and one against an AI company whose chatbot has become a source of emotional attachment for children. In an interview with the Guardian, the state's top legal official said the proposed laws would go beyond social media, creating a broader consumer protection framework for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and chatbots. He has also had preliminary discussions about the legislation with Deb Haaland, the former US interior secretary and Democratic nominee for New Mexico governor, who expressed support for his efforts. "I think there's a lot of momentum coming out of our victory in court, and the idea is to build on that momentum," said Torrez, who is running for re-election this year. A Meta spokesperson said: "We have strict, longstanding rules against child exploitation and have invested billions to fight it, both through proactive detection technology and safety features designed to prevent harm." The company cited its record on sharing the amount of child sexual exploitation content it removes, including 36m pieces from Facebook and Instagram in 2025. The spokesperson added that Meta has spent the last decade working to support young people using its apps, in particular through the introduction of "teen accounts". New suits, new bills Earlier this month, a judge ordered the company to pay $567m as part of the second phase of a case brought by the state. The money will primarily fund youth mental health treatment, with the remainder directed toward awareness, prevention and screening services. The court also imposed a series of reforms that will remain in effect for five years, including age verification, enhanced safeguards against child sexual exploitation, overnight limits on push notifications and mandatory time-use limits for users under 18. The judge's ruling followed a seven-week trial earlier this year in which a jury found that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. The jury imposed the maximum penalty available under state law, a $375m fine, bringing Meta's total liability across the two phases of the lawsuit to $942m. "We disagree with the ruling and will appeal," said a Meta spokesperson. His office is also pursuing another case against Meta, with a trial involving data privacy and civic harms expected to begin in September. The attorney general's office is also filing a lawsuit against an AI company over a chatbot that children have been known to form bonds with, Torrez said, describing the case as likely to be filed in the "relatively near future". 'The pervasiveness of child sexual exploitation' Reflecting on the first phase of the trial, which ran from February to March, Torrez said the evidence that most shocked him was "the depth of what they knew about not only the mental health problems that were occurring on the platform, but also the pervasiveness of child sexual exploitation". The evidence came in part from internal emails obtained by the state during the discovery process, he said. "A lot of times, when we are dealing with corporate misconduct and we start investigating, we rarely see that kind of history of and depth of knowledge that was apparent in Meta's case," he said. Meta fought hard to prevent the disclosure of the emails, bringing "nearly 50 lawyers", Torrez said. The legal battle also briefly raised the prospect of Meta withdrawing its services from New Mexico. In April, ahead of the second phase of the trial, Meta threatened to block access to Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp in New Mexico - a move that would have been unprecedented in the US. Torrez said he dismissed the threat as a negotiating tactic. "It seemed to me at the time to be a bluff that was intended to either shape the court's determination or to bully the state of New Mexico," he said. Potential legal blueprint for other states The New Mexico lawsuit was the first of several the company faces. In March 2026, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for designing intentionally addictive products that harmed a young user. Meta is now facing a separate federal trial in Oakland, California, as part of a 29-state multidistrict lawsuit filed in 2023. The trial involves California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, while eight other states, including Tennessee, have brought separate cases in state courts. Torrez said the New Mexico case has generated interest from other potential plaintiffs. "There is substantial interest, not only in with state attorney generals, but in smaller municipalities, school districts, private plaintiffs and others to look at the work that we've done here and to try and replicate it," said Torrez. The potential damages in the broader state attorneys general litigation could exceed $1.4tn, according to a July court filing by Meta, putting the lawsuits on a scale that could potentially pose an existential threat to the company. A Meta spokesperson said: "The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate. The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features such as having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification." Despite the victory, the New Mexico ruling did not grant all of the remedies sought by the state. New Mexico had sought $3.7bn as part of an abatement plan to fund child mental health services. The judge declined several of the state's requested measures, including proposals to de-encrypt children's messages and appoint a child safety monitor to oversee Meta for five years, finding that some of those measures were more appropriately considered by the legislative branch. One of the bills state legislators are writing would remove caps on penalties for violating consumer protection laws in New Mexico, Torrez said. "And so, what we are going to do is, continue to lobby Congress for that, but also to work at the state level to try and build not only a comprehensive social media safety bill, but also to reform and update our consumer protection laws," he said. He believes the issue ultimately requires federal legislation, but argues that states cannot wait for Congress to act. "There hasn't been any willingness by Speaker [Mike] Johnson to really put forward a forceful piece of legislation, a strong piece of legislation that would protect kids online," said Torrez. "I think it's a pretty straightforward case of the lobbying power of big tech on Capitol Hill." State's push for for stronger age checks For phase two of the New Mexico trial, the state proposed a number of actions Meta could take, which it said would "remedy the harms the company has created for users under 18". The state sought to require Meta to deploy technologically feasible age-verification tools for all users, permanently delete any personal identifying information collected during the verification process, block children under 13 from using its platforms and delete their accounts and associated data, and require all users under 18 to have an associated guardian account. Requiring age verification for social media platforms is controversial, as it raises significant privacy, data security and free-speech concerns, particularly if companies are required to collect sensitive personal information to verify users' ages. "The judge did not go as far as we would have liked on age verification," said Torrez, who concedes that concerns about data privacy are valid. "My instinct is that this will be a process that evolves over time because it's a five-year period that that Meta is under the court's jurisdiction in terms of compliance, and obviously we have to wait for the appellate process to to play out before all of those terms are fully in effect," said Torrez.

New Mexico's attorney general reportedly pushes new social media safety laws a day before 29 AGs testify against Meta in federal trial | Fortune

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is reportedly working with state lawmakers to draft two new bills strengthening consumer protections and child safety online, the day before 29 state attorneys general are set to face off against Meta in a separate federal trial in Oakland, California. The legislation, which is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, would extend beyond social media to cover artificial intelligence and chatbots. "I think there's a lot of momentum coming out of our victory in court, and the idea is to build on that momentum," Torrez told the Guardian. The timing lines up two fronts in the fight over Meta and child safety: Torrez's push at the state legislative level, building on New Mexico's own $942 million verdict against the company, and Tuesday's opening statements in the federal case brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey as part of the broader 29-state coalition that sued Meta in 2023. One of Torrez's bills would remove the cap on penalties for violating New Mexico's consumer protection laws. "What we are going to do is continue to lobby Congress for that, but also to work at the state level to try and build not only a comprehensive social media safety bill, but also to reform and update our consumer protection laws," he told the Guardian. Torrez said his office is also pursuing a second, separate case against Meta over data privacy and civic harms, with a trial expected to begin in September. In addition, he is preparing to file a lawsuit against an AI company over a chatbot he said children have formed emotional attachments to. The New Mexico Attorney General's office declined Fortune's request for comment. "We disagree with the ruling and will appeal," a Meta spokesperson told Fortune. "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." New Mexico's legislative effort follows an Aug. 6 ruling in which First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to create a $567 million abatement fund on top of $375 million in civil penalties a jury had already imposed in March, bringing the company's total New Mexico liability to $942 million. The court also imposed reforms lasting five years, including age verification, overnight limits on push notifications, and mandatory time-use limits for users under 18. An ongoing debate between privacy and security That tension between the popularity of age verification mandates and the privacy and enforcement problems they raise has defined the broader fight over kids and social media this year. Congress has moved in fits and starts on the Kids Online Safety Act and the App Store Accountability Act, while the Federal Trade Commission has pulled back from social media rulemaking even as kids spend more than four hours a day online. Most Americans doubt existing age verification laws will actually work, and reporting has shown Gen Alpha users easily find ways around the age checks that do exist. Child safety advocates, on the other hand, welcomed Torrez's legislative push. "We applaud Attorney General Torrez and attorneys general across the country who are holding Meta and other Big Tech platforms to account for their treatment of kids and teens," Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at child advocacy group Fairplay, told Fortune. "States have been leading the charge to improve our children's safety and data privacy online. We urge Congress to join the states in this leadership by passing the Kids Online Safety Act, bringing baseline safety by design standards to all children in the U.S." Julie Scelfo, founder and executive director of Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA), told Fortune: "It shouldn't matter if a company manufactures food, toys, vehicles or digital products. Consumer product safety is the bedrock of a healthy society, and it is long past time for lawmakers to impose basic safeguards to protect children online, ones that Big Tech clearly is unwilling to implement on their own." "No company should be allowed to profit from products that intentionally addict and harm our kids. We applaud AG Torrez, as well as other attorneys general and lawmakers nationwide, for helping bring consumer and child safety into the 21st century," Scelfo continued. Tuesday's federal fight In the Northern District of California tomorrow, opening statements begin the case brought by the 29 states against Meta. They allege the social media giant designed Facebook and Instagram to keep children and teens on the platforms longer, to the point of physical and mental harm. They accuse the company of illegally collecting children's data in violation of COPPA, the same federal children's privacy law at the center of the FTC's rulemaking retreat. The case follows a Ninth Circuit ruling this month rejecting Meta's bid to use Section 230 immunity to halt the trial, a decision that also cleared the way for thousands of other pending social media harm lawsuits. The trial is expected to run seven weeks, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri both expected to testify. According to a July court filing by Meta, potential damages in the broader litigation could exceed $1.4 trillion. The company currently has a $1.5 trillion market capitalization.