A New Mexico court has ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million and implement sweeping safety protections for teenage users, after ruling that Facebook and Instagram contributed to a youth mental health crisis in the state.

The judgment, issued Thursday by Judge Bryan Biedscheid, follows a March jury verdict that ordered Meta to pay $375 million for violating New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act. Combined, the company's total liability in the case now approaches $942 million.

Judge Biedscheid found that Meta had created a public nuisance under New Mexico law and mandated a series of youth-safety measures to be implemented over the next five years. The required changes include monthly time limits on teens' use of Facebook and Instagram, restrictions on notifications, tighter controls on adults contacting minors, new safeguards for AI chatbots, and enhanced reviews of child sexual abuse reports.

Meta said it disagrees with the ruling and intends to appeal. "We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business. "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."

The court sided with New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, who accused Meta of deliberately designing products that addict young users and of failing to adequately protect children from sexual exploitation on its platforms. Torrez said the $567 million will fund the state's abatement plan, supplementing the $375 million in civil penalties from the earlier jury trial.

"For years, Meta knew its platforms were harming New Mexico's kids, from feeding a youth mental health crisis to connecting predators with children, and it chose engagement and profit over their safety," Torrez said in a statement. "Today, Meta is paying for that choice. This judgment holds the company accountable for the damage it caused to our children, our families, and our schools, and it forces real changes to how Meta operates in New Mexico."

Torrez described the ruling as a "blueprint" for other jurisdictions pursuing similar litigation against social media companies. "For the first time, a court has ruled that a social media giant can be held liable for building products that endanger children and has ordered the structural changes needed to fix it," he said. "New Mexico led the way in the courtroom. Now other states, and other countries confronting the same crisis, have a roadmap they can follow."

More than 40 states and over 1,300 school districts have already filed public nuisance lawsuits against social media companies, seeking both damages and court-ordered changes to their products and business practices. The public nuisance theory has become a central legal strategy in these cases because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has historically shielded online platforms from liability for content posted by users. By framing the alleged harm around product design and engagement features rather than individual posts, plaintiffs are pursuing claims that do not rely on holding platforms responsible for specific user content. Separately, states including Utah, Florida, and Texas have passed laws imposing parental consent requirements or usage limits on minors' social media accounts, though some of those measures face ongoing court challenges.

The ruling followed three weeks of testimony in the second trial stemming from the lawsuit. Unlike the first trial, the proceeding was conducted without a jury and focused narrowly on whether Meta's platforms constituted a "public nuisance" under state law.

In his written ruling, Biedscheid drew an analogy between the alleged harms caused by Meta's platforms and pollution emanating from a factory. "(J)ust as noxious pollution produced by the factory can harm the common public right to reasonably clean air, the harmful effects of Meta's platforms on children do not stay contained by its platforms," he wrote.

The judge said those effects extend into the real world, creating broader burdens for children, families, schools, hospitals, and law enforcement.

New Mexico originally filed the lawsuit in 2023, alleging that Meta had created a "breeding ground" for child predators and misled users about the adequacy of safety protections across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

FOX Business' Jasmine Baehr and Reuters contributed to this report.