After winning a landmark jury verdict in March, New Mexico Department of Justice is seeking injunctive relief that would require Meta to implement significant changes to its platforms, safety practices, and internal operations to make its platforms safer for children.
Source: New Mexico Department of Justice
Santa Fe, NM — Yesterday, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory, “Surgeon General’s Warnings on the Harms of Screen Use” that recommends many of the same changes New Mexico is already seeking in the second phase of the State’s child safety trial against Meta. The advisory warns about the risks of excessive screen time and social media use can pose to children, adding momentum to a growing push for stronger online protections for minors.
After winning a landmark jury verdict in March, New Mexico Department of Justice is seeking injunctive relief that would require Meta to implement significant changes to its platforms, safety practices, and internal operations to make its platforms safer for children. The new Surgeon General’s advisory was admitted as evidence in the trial today and the second phase of the trial is expected to conclude on Friday, May 22.
See below for a comparison of the Surgeon General’s recommendations and the State’s key injunctive relief requests:
| Surgeon General Advisory’s Recommendations | New Mexico’s Injunctive Relief Request |
| Warning Label “Display a warning about harmful screen use before each use.” | Warning Label “Implement a warning label, as recommended by the Surgeon General [in 2024], that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for teens.” |
| Accurately Disclose the Potential Harms of Meta’s Products “Support transparency and independent research about the effects of screen use on children.” | Accurately Disclose the Potential Harms of Meta’s Products “Allow independent researchers adequate access to test the effects of the recommendation algorithms Meta deploys for its New Mexico U18 users and to report their research publicly and to the Court.” “Conduct and publish annual surveys of parents and U18s to determine exposure to content and conduct related to SSI, eating disorders, bullying/harassment, and child sexual exploitation. Survey format to be approved by Monitor.” “Conduct and publish the results of independent testing of the efficacy of all safety tools that Meta markets for minors.” |
| Proactively Prevent Online Child Sexual Exploitation “Ensure default settings for children are set to highest safety and privacy standards.” | Proactively Prevent Online Child Sexual Exploitation “Set all safety tools on by default for New Mexico U18s.” “Maintain and enforce default settings that place all known or estimated New Mexico U18 users in private accounts. Private accounts will not show up in search and will not be recommended. Setting may not be changed to public without a guardian’s consent.” |
| Prevent Predators from Contacting Minors “Do not recommend minor accounts to adult users and prevent direct messages to minor accounts from strangers.” “Do not allow deceptive patterns to trick children into unintended actions.” | Prevent Predators from Contacting Minors “Regardless of account status, do not recommend accounts of New Mexico U18 users to adults or permit adult users to find U18 accounts in search.” “Prevent any adult not directly connected to the U18 from messaging New Mexico U18s; settings cannot be changed until user is 18 years old or over.” “Ensure that for New Mexico U18 accounts recommendation algorithms are optimized for integrity at least as much as engagement, and those changes should be assessed for their effects on teen well-being.” |
| Enact Real Age Verification “Adhere to and enforce age minimums for usage through robust, privacy-protecting assurance methods.” | Enact Real Age Verification “For all New Mexico user accounts, provide tools to identify the age of users: Including one or more recognized and technically feasible techniques (such as facial age estimation, digital ID/document verification, professional vouching and/or credit card or similar checks), whether by Meta or a third-party. With whatever method or tools used, Meta and any third-party contractor it uses shall not store and shall permanently delete any personal identifying information collected to assure a user’s age as soon as feasible after the age assurance check is completed.” |
| Remove Addictive Features for Children “Eliminate features designed to maximize screen time, such as autoplay videos, infinite scroll, recommendation algorithms, and reward notifications.” “Disable notifications for children’s accounts and implement a bedtime and school mode.” | Remove Addictive Features for Children “Eliminate infinite scroll and autoplay for New Mexico U18 accounts.” “Eliminate push notifications for New Mexico U18 accounts during school and sleep hours (e.g., between 8:30 am and 3 pm on weekdays and 11 pm and 7 am).” “Ensure that for New Mexico U18 accounts recommendation algorithms are optimized for integrity at least as much as engagement, and those changes should be assessed for their effects on teen well-being.” “Hide like and share counts by default for New Mexico U18 users.” |
| Provide All Minors Safeguards by Default and New Parental Controls “Provide effective parental controls that are accessible and understandable. The defaults for minors should be set for high privacy, low-data-collection, and age-appropriate content settings that don’t require parental opt-in.” | Provide All Minors Safeguards by Default and New Parental Controls “Alert parents when New Mexico U18s engage with or are messaged by accounts with sextortion signals (e.g., show sextortion heuristics or have recently changed their profile picture and username) or when New Mexico U18s receive direct messages from suspicious adults or adults with limited connections.” “Set all safety tools on by default for New Mexico U18s.” “Maintain and enforce default settings that place all known or estimated New Mexico U18 users in private accounts. Private accounts will not show up in search and will not be recommended. Setting may not be changed to public without a guardian’s consent.” |
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