c/technology@beehaw.org · remington@beehaw.org · 12 Aug 2026 18:50

Judge rules Meta caused "public nuisance" and must fund mental health treatment

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/meta-ordered-to-pay-567m-to-treat-youth-mental-health-problems-it-helped-create/

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A New Mexico judge yesterday ordered Meta to pay $567 million for a fund that would alleviate the “public nuisance” created by its social media services. The order to pay for youth mental health care is in addition to $375 million in civil penalties that a jury ordered Meta to pay earlier in the same case.

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• [–] @Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca · 12 Aug 2026

  make it a yearly thing they need to pay too because they won’t change their ways…

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• [–] @XLE@piefed.social · 12 Aug 2026

  Meta said it will appeal the ruling, telling media outlets, “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.”

  Meanwhile in the real world:

  According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2018 an engineer in charge of one of Facebook’s community integrity teams, David Erb, found that “the most frequent way adults found children to prey upon” was People You May Know. The Journal also reported that a few days later, Erb found that Meta was planning to add encryption to Facebook messages, something that would prevent the company from fixing the problem, threatening to resign in protest. He was placed on leave not long after, eventually leaving.

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  • [–] @Fifrok@discuss.tchncs.de · 12 Aug 2026

    “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."

    Didn’t their platform directly contribute to starting a civil war? Or was that a diffrent alghoritm-based slopcial media?

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• [–] @Quexotic@beehaw.org · 12 Aug 2026

  If it’s not annual and a significant percentage of their gross income, it’s just the cost of doing business.

  Its not a total loss, but I can’t bring myself to see it as a win.

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