"Meta shares drop on fears US verdicts open door to deluge of lawsuits" 26 March 2026

Meta Platforms shares dropped 7% on Thursday after two verdicts holding it liable ​for harm to young users sparked fears the social media giant may have to overhaul ‌the design practices that have underpinned its sprawling advertising business.

While fines from the U.S. trials in New Mexico and Los Angeles totaled only a few hundred million dollars, experts and investors said the verdicts could open the company to ​a wave of litigation that sidesteps a federal law, which has long shielded online platforms from ​liability for user-generated content.

That playbook, of targeting platform design, could prove crucial in ⁠the thousands of lawsuits in the U.S. alleging that social media platforms have caused harm, potentially resulting ​in billions of dollars in fines and forcing changes that could shift investor sentiment towards the stocks, experts ​said.

The rulings add a new layer of uncertainty for Meta just as it bets tens of billions of dollars on AI, a move that has already unsettled some investors.

"These decisions don't break the business model today, but they raise the ​range of outcomes around future cash flows and margin structure" Adam Sarhan, CEO of 50 Park Investments, ​said.

Meta investors were "repricing legal and regulatory risk after the recent verdicts," he said...