A U.S. jury in New Mexico has slammed Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with a $375 million fine after finding that the platforms are harmful to children, with experts praising the judgment.

The jury on Tuesday stated that tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta prioritised profit over children’s safety as the platform endangers children, exposing them to predators and harmful content.

This verdict followed a suit by New Mexico’s attorney general Raúl Torrez in 2023. The suit wants Meta to be stricter about age verification and to remove bad actors with content not safe for children from the platform.

In an email to Peoples Gazette on Wednesday, University of Sydney experts lauded the court’s verdict as a positive development focused on children’s well-being.

Rob Nicholls, a senior research associate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, said, “This landmark verdict, along with many other similar lawsuits against social media companies, signals a shift in how courts view platform design as a set of choices that can carry real legal and social consequences. It opens the door to wider challenges against social media and other technology systems engineered to maximise engagement at the expense of user wellbeing.”

The judgment highlights a simple principle: societies must place limits on children’s access to environments where predatory behaviour is common and safeguards are weak, according to Uri Gal, Business Information Systems, Business School.

He added, “We do not allow minors into comparable physical spaces, and online platforms should be no different. Age-gating is a necessary baseline for digital environments where risks are widespread and difficult to control.”

A group of ordinary American citizens did what U.S. regulators “have so far failed to do”, said Joanne Gray, chair of Discipline (Media and Communications), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

“They looked at the evidence and found that Meta puts profits over user safety. This jury decision sends a clear message to all the Big Tech platforms: they need to do better, especially when it comes to keeping kids safe,” Ms Gray explained.