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Meta is facing a New Mexico trial over allegations that it failed to protect children from sexual exploitation on social media, with jurors hearing opening arguments Monday as the case began in Santa Fe. Prosecutors framed the lawsuit as a consumer protection dispute about what Meta knew and what it disclosed about risks to children, while defense attorneys argued Meta made appropriate disclosures and that harmful content exists despite efforts to remove it.
In his opening statement, Donald Migliori, the attorney for the prosecution representing the state at trial, told the jury that Meta misrepresented the safety of its platforms and engineered its algorithms to keep young people on social media. He said the company emphasized growth and engagement over youth safety and argued that Meta had prioritized profits over protections for children. Migliori said “Meta clearly knew that youth safety was not its corporate priority … that youth safety was less important than growth and engagement.”
Migliori said the state’s case would show that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, emphasized profits over safety. Prosecutors also previewed that they may use a video deposition of Zuckerberg in the trial, and noted that it was unclear whether Zuckerberg would testify in person. The state said New Mexico limits the ability to compel out-of-state witnesses to testify in person.
Meta attorney Kevin Huff pushed back on the state’s characterization in his opening statement, describing the company’s efforts to weed out harmful content and warning users that some dangerous content still can get past safety systems. Huff repeated the refrain that “Meta disclosed, it didn’t deceive,” and he told jurors, “The state cannot win this case by showing there is bad content on Facebook and Instagram,” adding that the jury should instead focus on whether Meta disclosed risks to user.
The lawsuit is part of a larger wave of actions brought by state attorneys general against major social media companies. More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, alleging the company designed features to addict children and failed to protect children and their mental health. Most of those actions were filed in federal court, and Monday’s New Mexico trial marked the first stand-alone trial by state prosecutors in that stream.
Prosecutors said they would present evidence that about 500,000 inappropriate interactions with children take place daily on Meta’s platforms and that the company does not adequately track those interactions. The state’s witness list includes Arturo Béjar, an engineering director at Facebook from 2009 to 2015, who testified to Congress after his daughter confronted harassment on Instagram.
The trial comes as courts also consider related claims in other jurisdictions. In California, opening statements began Monday in a separate case accusing Meta and Google’s YouTube of deliberately making their platforms addictive and harming children. The outcome in both cases could challenge how courts interpret the companies’ First Amendment arguments and Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a law that provides broad protections to tech companies for content posted on their platforms.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat seeking reelection this year to a second term, built the case by posing as children on social media and documenting sexual solicitations along with Meta’s response. Torrez has sought changes including more effective age verification and additional steps to remove bad actors from the platform. He has also said the state wants changes to algorithms that can serve harmful material and has criticized end-to-end privacy encryption that can prevent monitoring of communications with children for safety, though Meta has said encrypted messaging is encouraged by some state and federal authorities.
Meta has disputed the state’s approach and the reliability of the investigation. In an online post Sunday, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the state’s investigation was “ethically compromised,” citing the use of child photos on proxy accounts, delays by prosecutors in reporting child sexual abuse material and the disposal of data from devices used in the investigation. Huff told jurors Monday that prosecutors were “cherry-picking evidence to make sensationalist arguments,” and argued, “The evidence will show that the state rigged this investigation to get a fake result,” adding that the jury should reject the reliability and fairness of what the defense described as a fake-account investigation.
The proceedings are also being watched for how the court handles the question at the center of the dispute: whether Meta adequately disclosed risks to children and what the company knew about those risks as its platforms were used by minors.