New Mexico refused the settlement over Meta's profit-driven addictive features for kids.
The state just won $942 million at trial.
Mark Zuckerberg hit the panic button after Florida’s Attorney General told Meta to see them in court.
Florida Walked Away From $18 Billion
Meta spent this week buying off 47 states for $18 billion spread over a decade.
Do the math.
A trillion-dollar company that posted $201 billion in revenue last year agreed to pay states an average of $1.8 billion annually – combined – to make child addiction lawsuits disappear.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier – Ron DeSantis' former chief of staff – looked at that offer and called it what it was.
"The payouts are peanuts compared to the profound harm Meta's profit-driven addictive features inflicted on kids," Uthmeier posted on X.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2092617125818986544?s=20
He wasn't done.
"Trying to wipe out a decade of harm to the nation's youth with one month's cash flow is an insult," he said.
Florida's lawsuit – filed under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act – targets Meta's deliberate design choices: the infinite scroll engineered to keep children locked in, the push notifications timed to interrupt sleep, the algorithms built to show kids not what they want to see but what they cannot look away from.
The state also accuses Meta of lying to parents about how safe its platforms actually were.
Now Florida will take those claims to a jury.
New Mexico Already Proved This Strategy Works
Here's what the other 47 attorneys general apparently forgot.
New Mexico skipped the coalition and went to trial instead.
In March 2026, a Santa Fe jury found Meta liable for 75,000 violations of the state's consumer protection law and ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties.
That was phase one.
In August – nearly three weeks before this settlement was announced – a judge added another $567 million, ruling that Meta created a "public nuisance" comparable to air pollution and ordered sweeping court-supervised reforms to Facebook and Instagram for the next five years.
New Mexico's total: $942 million from one state.
Florida has a population roughly 10 times larger than New Mexico.
Uthmeier knows this.
"Corporations like Meta will never learn a lesson if they don't incur real costs for breaking the law," he posted.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2092624537217110086?s=20
The multistate settlement requires Meta to pay California alone at least $1.5 billion – but only after a decade of installments, and only if YouTube and TikTok implement matching safety features or Meta withholds $5.3 billion of the total.
That's not accountability.
That's a press release.
The Boy Who Never Made It to 17
Jennifer Mitchell's son Ian Ezquerra was 16 years old when he died in 2019.
He filmed himself playing Russian roulette on Snapchat and posted the video.
Mitchell says he spent years addicted and emotionally destroyed by social media platforms that were engineered – deliberately, knowingly, profitably – to capture and hold young minds.
She sued Meta and Snap in 2022.
Her case is still active.
"Meta wanting to settle just shows that they know that they had a part in a bunch of people's deaths," Mitchell said.
The safety features Meta agreed to in the settlement – a two-hour daily limit teens' parents can disable, muted notifications during school hours, hidden like counts – didn't impress her attorney either.
"First and foremost, the algorithms are still addictive," said Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center. "They still show kids not what they want to see, but what they can't look away from."
The machine is still running.
The settlement just put a prettier label on it.
Zuckerberg Was About to Testify
There is one more thing worth understanding about the timing here.
The federal trial in Oakland began August 18.
https://twitter.com/Bannons_WarRoom/status/2092980579604074911?s=20
Instagram head Adam Mosseri had already begun testifying.
Mark Zuckerberg – who testified in a Los Angeles case where a jury found Meta knowingly designed apps to addict children – was expected to take the stand next.
Then the settlement happened.
Forty-seven states took the money.
Florida said no.
Uthmeier's message to Meta after announcing Florida would not join: "We'll see them at trial."
One state went first, refused to settle, and walked away with nearly a billion dollars.
Florida is bigger, the evidence is stronger, and Meta just ran out of states willing to let it off easy.
Sources:
- James Uthmeier, "Florida didn't join the Meta settlement," X (formerly Twitter), August 26, 2026.
- Fox 35 Orlando, "Florida rejects Meta's $18B settlement in federal child safety lawsuit," Fox 35, August 27, 2026.
- Florida Politics, "Meta settles with 47 states over social media lawsuits – but not Florida," Florida Politics, August 26, 2026.
- New Mexico Department of Justice, "Court Orders Meta to Pay $942 Million and Overhaul Protections for Children on Facebook and Instagram," NMDOJ, August 7, 2026.
- Fortune, "Meta's $18 billion settlement leaves out the child protections New Mexico already won at trial," Fortune, August 26, 2026.
- Click Orlando, "'We'll see them at trial:' Florida rejects Meta billion-dollar settlement over teen social media addiction," Click Orlando, August 26, 2026.
