New Mexico jury finds Meta liable for privacy violations

A Santa Fe jury concluded on Friday that tech giant Meta bore liability for deceiving customers about a data breach that impacted roughly 87 million Facebook profiles. The Instagram and Facebook parent company made deceptive statements about data protection when a third-party quiz harvested and sold user data, according to state prosecutors’ lawsuit. The third-party quiz sold the data to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to help generate targeted ads.

After a two-week trial, jurors concluded that Meta violated New Mexico’s consumer protection law. Prosecutors petitioned the judge to order a penalty of up to $5,000 for each of the more than 43 million violations identified in the case. Jurors also concluded that Facebook misled the general public about its investigations into third-party data harvesting after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The jury did not find Meta liable for making false statements extending to efforts it took to protect against misinformation and hate speech spread on its platform.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez described the state’s win as historic for every state fighting to hold big tech accountable, according to a Friday afternoon statement. Let this trial outcome be a warning to companies that if they lie to New Mexico residents about how their data is being used, the state will hold them accountable, Torrez said.

Has Meta commented on the trial outcome? Meta disagreed with the trial’s outcome and planned to continue defending itself against efforts to distort the company’s record, a Meta spokesperson told WORLD in a Friday statement. The statement mainly focused on what it described as Facebook’s commitment to free speech. Meta’s platforms served as free expression forums, and the company maintained a First Amendment fight to manage those platforms in the best interest of communities, the spokesperson said.

Didn’t this trial take place months ago? Meta has gone on trial several times within the last year, including a separate trial in New Mexico in March, where a different Santa Fe jury concluded that Meta endangered children by misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms. The parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp violated state law and prioritized profits over safety, according to the March verdict.

A California jury also concluded in March that Meta’s negligence contributed to a 20-year-old woman’s social media addiction and health issues. Another California trial centering on Meta’s use of addictive algorithms began in August, with state prosecutors accusing the tech giant of harming children by intentionally deploying damaging algorithms on its platforms.