“Parents RISE was built by parents who lost their kids to harms connected to Meta’s products. Parents who have sat in courtrooms and watched this company deny what our families already knew. We were in the courtroom in Los Angeles. We traveled to New Mexico to stand beside Attorney General Torrez as this case went to trial. So when Judge Biedscheid ruled that Meta’s platforms – Instagram and Facebook – are destroying kids’ mental health, he wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know.
He was affirming, in a court of law, what our families have lived through and buried children over: products that connect children with predators and drug dealers, drive them into disordered eating, amplified bullying and harmful content, and are engineered to keep them online no matter the cost.
Meta spent years and untold dollars telling parents these products were safe, yet thousands of pages of evidence presented in court proved otherwise. Parents RISE applauds this ruling for holding them accountable.
“$567 million is pocket change for one of the richest corporations on earth. But the order to put the bulk of that money into mental health treatment for young people is a real, tangible step toward justice — and toward repairing harm that families like ours have been carrying alone for years. Tobacco companies were made to pay for the public health costs of the products they knew were killing kids. Tech companies like Meta must be made to do the same.
“What matters most in this ruling isn’t the check, it’s that Meta is now under court supervision, required to redesign its products to be safer for kids. These are the changes parents have been begging for since before this case ever began: preventing kids’ accounts from being pushed to adult strangers, defaulting young or unverified users into the most protective settings, limiting harmful recommendations and building in real time limits. This is what accountability looks like.
“But one ruling in one state does not end this fight. It proves that the fight works and it is a call to every parent, every state, and every attorney general considering whether to hold Big Tech accountable: keep going.
Parents RISE will keep showing up, in courtrooms, statehouses and communities across this country, until every platform that reaches our children is built with their safety, dignity, and well-being at the center.