Meta Fined $567M, Told to Cap Teen Time at 90 Hours a Month in Landmark Ruling

The Ruling from Santa Fe

A Santa Fe District Court judge has ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million in fines and immediately implement a hard cap that prevents teenagers under 18 from using Facebook and Instagram for more than 90 hours combined each month. The ruling, issued late Thursday by Judge Bryan Biedscheid, marks the first time a U.S. court has imposed a legally binding screen-time limit on social media as a remedy for alleged harm to youth mental health.

The judgment stems from a 2023 lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who accused Meta of designing its platforms to maximize engagement in ways that deliberately fuel a public nuisance and a “youth mental health crisis.” Earlier this year, a state jury had already found Meta liable for violating a consumer-protection statute, levying a separate $375 million penalty. The new fine and the operational injunction go further by targeting the company’s product architecture rather than simply punishing past conduct.

Judge Biedscheid’s 68-page order does not, however, grant everything the state requested. Torrez wanted Meta to disable features like auto-playing videos and algorithmically recommended content—tools the AG argued are intrinsically addictive. The judge refused, citing strong First Amendment protections and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability when they merely organise or display users’ speech. “The State’s requested algorithm relief would directly alter and limit the manner in which platform content is displayed,” Biedscheid wrote, concluding that such a demand would likely violate both the First Amendment and Section 230.

Instead, the court landed on the 90-hour monthly ceiling as a remedy that targets platform design without meddling with the underlying content or its presentation. The judge explicitly said that Meta’s platforms constitute a public nuisance because their “purpose and effect is to optimize engagement, including in ways that are detrimental to teenagers’ health and safety.” Meta immediately pushed back, arguing that the state’s real complaint is about user-generated content and that the company will continue to defend itself against claims it says misrepresent the facts.

Why the Time Cap Outflanks Section 230

The Section 230 Balancing Act

The ruling is significant precisely because it draws a line that Section 230 cannot ignore. By declining to touch content-ranking algorithms, the judge sidestepped the well-established shield that protects tech platforms from being treated as publishers of third-party speech. But he then found an opening in public-nuisance law: Meta’s own design choices—the architecture that encourages endless scrolling and repeated returns—can be treated as a product defect, not a content decision. That theory, if upheld on appeal, would give state attorneys general a new lever to force design changes without having to dismantle algorithmic feeds.

A Potentially Industry-Shifting Time Cap

The 90-hour monthly limit is the real wildcard. For context, 90 hours a month equates to roughly three hours a day, which may sound generous but instantly disrupts the ad-driven business model that depends on maximizing time-on-platform. Meta does not disclose exactly how much revenue comes from teen users, but investors already fret about teen engagement decline. If enforced—and if other jurisdictions copy the model—the cap could reduce the pool of high-attention, ad-valuable users. Competitors not subject to the same restrictions could then siphon away teens, raising competitive risk for Meta’s family of apps. The order also demands Meta actively block access once the limit is hit, meaning the company must build a clock and enforcement system that works across accounts and devices, a technically nontrivial requirement.

Where This Leaves Meta’s Legal Strategy

Meta’s immediate response signals an appeal based on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds, likely arguing that even a time cap indirectly regulates speech by penalising the platform for hosting too much of it. The company also faces a patchwork of other state lawsuits and congressional scrutiny, and this ruling hands plaintiffs a template: sue not just over content harms but over the design itself. The combined fines now exceed $940 million in New Mexico alone, a figure that won’t sink Meta’s balance sheet but will draw attention from every state AG weighing a similar action.

What Platforms and Policymakers Should Do Now

For Meta: Beyond an appeal, the company must prepare to implement time-trackers and age-verification strict enough to survive court scrutiny, while navigating Europe’s already stringent Digital Services Act. It should quantify the teen user base that would be affected and model the ad-revenue at stake if the cap spreads. Proactively proposing its own safety-time limits might dull the political pressure.

For other social media platforms: Review engagement-optimizing features under a design-liability lens. Even if your app isn’t named today, the public-nuisance theory could be applied anywhere a state AG believes teens are spending “too much” time. Consider voluntarily introducing screen-time dashboards or family controls that mimic what regulators may demand.

For investors: The precedent introduces a new variable into social-media valuations: a regulatory ceiling on user hours per demographic. Watch for copycat bills in states like California and New York, and track whether teens migrate to services that still have unlimited access. Early compliance costs are manageable, but a cascade of limits would force a rethink of the industry’s ad-impression economics.

For policymakers: The ruling offers a middle path between algorithmic bans (which courts may block) and doing nothing. A hard usage cap focuses on the design’s addictive pull without policing speech, but it also raises questions about enforcement, user privacy (age verification), and whether teens will simply shift to other, unregulated corners of the internet.