Meta is facing a mounting series of costly courtroom defeats in the United States over claims it knowingly harmed children's mental health through addictive platform design and failed to protect young users from exploitation. The rulings, which follow years of scrutiny over social media's effects on teenagers, could force Meta and other major platforms to overhaul how they operate, including tightening age verification and usage limits, and expose the company to billions of dollars in further liability.

A New Mexico court recently ordered Meta to pay $567m (£450m) into a teen mental health remediation fund, on top of a $375m penalty already imposed after a jury found in March that the company negligently allowed harm to children's mental health and concealed knowledge of child sexual exploitation on its platforms. A separate Los Angeles case also in March resulted in $4.2m in damages and has opened the door to hundreds of similar lawsuits. Meta now faces 42 state lawsuits and thousands more claims, alongside YouTube, TikTok and Snap, though experts note remedies such as AI-driven age verification remain imperfect, with similar tools shown to be largely ineffective in enforcing Australia's under-16 social media ban.