A jury today found Meta Platforms Inc. violated New Mexico law in a “historic” case that accused the company of misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and failing to protect children from exploitation.

“The jury’s verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew.”

In a trial that lasted seven weeks, Meta was found responsible for violating New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act because it misled the public about safety, notably for young users. Jurors were presented with the company’s internal documents while a number of former Meta employees testified about what they said was a failure to protect young people on Meta’s platforms.

One of those was Arturo Béjar, a former engineering leader at Meta who would later become a whistleblower. Béjar testified that he had seen first-hand how young people using Instagram had been served sexualized content.

As part of the investigation, the New Mexico attorney general’s office created multiple fake Facebook and Instagram profiles posing as children. The investigators said the accounts subjected to sexualized content and were contacted by three adult men and solicited for sex. Two of those men were arrested after going to a motel to meet what they believed was a 12-year-old girl.

Jurors found there were thousands of violations. The jury said they had reached a compromise on the number, but each violation would receive the maximum penalty of $5,000. This amounted to a penalty of $375 million, although it was about one-fifth of what prosecutors were seeking.

Meta denied wrongdoing and will appeal the ruling. The company’s spokesperson accused Torrez of making “sensationalist, irrelevant arguments” and “cherry-picking select documents.”

“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content,” the Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

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