{"id":2259,"date":"2026-03-24T07:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T07:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2259"},"modified":"2026-03-24T07:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T07:29:02","slug":"landmark-trial-new-mexico-decide-meta-misled-users-131318101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2259","title":{"rendered":"Landmark trial to decide whether Meta misled users about children’s safety risks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

SANTA FE, N.M. — <\/span>A jury began deliberations Monday in a landmark trial in New Mexico where social media conglomerate Meta<\/a> is accused of misleading its users about how safe its platforms are for children.<\/p>\n

Meta’s attorneys dispute the claims and say the company<\/a> provides built-in protections for teenagers and weeds out harmful content<\/a> but that some potentially harmful gets past its safety nets for some users.<\/p>\n

Jurors heard closing arguments after six weeks of testimony from scores of witnesses that included local teachers, psychiatric experts, state investigators, top Meta officials and whistleblowers who left the company.<\/p>\n

The case in New Mexico state court is among the first to reach trial in a wave of litigation involving social media platforms and their impacts on children.<\/p>\n

New Mexico prosecutors have accused Meta<\/a> \u2014 which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp \u2014 of prioritizing profits over safety in violation of state consumer protection laws. They have raised concerns about the safety of complex algorithms, and a variety of messaging features and settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that young people are spending too much time on Meta’s products, they\u2019ve lost control,\u201d prosecution attorney Linda Singer told the jury in closing statements. \u201cMeta knew that and it didn\u2019t disclose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer said testimony and evidence at trial showed Meta\u2019s algorithms had been recommending sensational and harmful content to teenagers, while alleging that the company failed to truly enforce its minimum user age of 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety issues that you\u2019ve heard about in this case, weren\u2019t mistakes. …. They were a product of a corporate philosophy that chose growth and engagement over children\u2019s safety,\u201d Singer said. \u201cAnd young people in this state and around the country have borne the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta attorney Kevin Huff on Monday highlighted witness testimony about Meta’s investments in the safety on its platforms, describing automated features and roles dedicated to safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta has built innovative, automated tools to protect people,\u201d he said. \u201cMeta has 40,000 people working to make its apps as safe as possible.”<\/p>\n

But he added that Meta’s systems aren’t perfect: “No one can, with billions of pieces of content every day, even the best system, cannot catch all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the company\u2019s enforcement of minimum age limits are hamstrung by U.S. government restrictions on collecting young children\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

Huff told the jury that the company \u201cdisclosed to the world that its safeguards are not perfect, and that some bad content and bad actors get onto its service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCommon sense also says that parents and teens know that there is bad content on the internet, and on Facebook and Instagram specifically,\u201d he added. But Huff noted the social media company has disclosed risks of its platforms in its user agreements, website, ads and on television.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever it could get its message out, Meta was disclosing risk to the public,\u201d Huff said.<\/p>\n

Singer urged jurors to impose a civil penalty that could exceed $2 billion against Meta, based on the maximum $5,000 penalty per violation on two counts of consumer protection violations, and an estimated 208,700 monthly users of Meta platforms under the age of 18 in New Mexico. The violations include \u201cunconscionable\u201d trade practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of a decade Meta has failed over and over again to act honestly and transparently, failed to act to protect young people in this state,\u201d Singer said. \u201cIt is up to you to finish this job.”<\/p>\n

Huff called the state\u2019s request for penalties \u201ca shocking number\u201d and said prosecutors failed to provide any examples of teenagers who chose to use Instagram because of a false understanding of its risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though teens are aware of the risks, they continue to use Instagram because they enjoy Instagram,\u201d Huff said.<\/p>\n

A second phase of the trial will follow with a judge deciding whether Meta created a public nuisance and should be on the hook financially to fund programs to address alleged harms to children.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Ra\u00fal Torrez filed suit in 2023, accusing Meta of creating a marketplace and \u201cbreeding ground\u201d for predators who target children for sexual exploitation and failing to disclose what it knew about those harmful effects. State investigators created social media accounts posing as children to document online sexual solicitations and the response from Meta.<\/p>\n

Meta attorneys accuse prosecutors of cherry-picking evidence and conducting a shoddy investigation.<\/p>\n

Meta executives emphasized at trial that the company continuously improves safety and addresses compulsive social media use without infringing on free speech or censoring users.<\/p>\n

But the prosecution on Monday said that public assurances about safety disclosures from Meta executives including founder Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri often didn’t square with internal studies and communications at the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was included in Meta\u2019s internal research — again this was research that didn\u2019t get disclosed by Meta — one-in-three teens experienced problematic use,\u201d Singer said. “They knew these kids were struggling with problematic use \u2014 again, addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury is assembled from residents of Santa Fe County, including the politically progressive state capital city.<\/p>\n

Tech companies have been protected from liability for material posted on their social media platforms under Section 230<\/a>, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, as well as a First Amendment shield.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say New Mexico is not seeking to hold Meta accountable for content on its platforms, but rather its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be addictive and harmful to children.<\/p>\n

In California, a jury already is sequestered in deliberations on whether Meta and YouTube should be liable<\/a> for harms caused to children using their platforms. The bellwether case could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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SANTA FE, N.M. — A jury began deliberations Monday in a landmark trial in New Mexico where social media conglomerate Meta is accused of misleading its users about how safe its platforms are for children. Meta’s attorneys dispute the claims and say the company provides built-in protections for teenagers and weeds out harmful content but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[219,197,62,57,395,31],"tags":[838,29,8,27,805,837,296,235,298,38],"class_list":["post-2259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-gear-news-and-events","category-general","category-news","category-newsletters","category-security-security-news","category-us","tag-838","tag-article","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-juries","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-technology","tag-trials","tag-u-s-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}