Ars Technica reports that a New Mexico jury hit Meta with $375 million after hearing that the company treated child exploitation and other harms as an unavoidable cost of scale, while investigators described its reporting as deficient and noisy. “ [H]arms to children, such as sexual exploitation and detriments to mental health, were inevitable on the company’s platforms due to their vast user bases.” Ars Technica, citing The Guardian’s trial reporting “ [G]enerated high volumes of ‘junk’ reports by overly relying on AI to moderate its platforms.” Ars Technica, citing testimony from law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children “Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.” Raúl Torrez, as quoted by Ars Technica

🚨⚖️🔥 Meta’s “inevitable” line is damning, not exculpatory: if child exploitation is a foreseeable by-product of your design, that is a duty to redesign, not a licence to shrug. A New Mexico jury just priced that shrug at $375 million. #DutyToRedesign #CorporateNegligence #OnlineSafety #BigTech