Facebook accused of deceiving users in New Mexico as trial over privacy scandal wraps up

Attorneys representing New Mexico accused Facebook of deceiving users about privacy protections on the social media platform and encouraged jurors during closing arguments Wednesday to find the company liable for thousands of violations of state law.

Jurors heard two weeks of evidence and must now decide whether Facebook violated the state’s Unfair Practices Act and if so, how many times. It would then be up to the judge to determine how much the company would pay per violation.

New Mexico is the only state that has taken the data breach claims to trial as part of its go-it-alone approach to press for more accountability from Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Earlier this year 48 states reached a landmark settlement with Meta that addressed child safety concerns and privacy issues surrounding the same data breach.

New Mexico is seeking the maximum civil penalties, up to $5,000 per violation, and an injunction to halt future breaches of user data.

The case centers on accusations that Facebook failed to protect users from a third-party personality quiz that harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, to generate targeted ads. The now-defunct firm’s clients included the 2016 campaign for Donald Trump.

“We became the product for Facebook. They turned our dreams into data they could sell to advertisers,” said Randi McGinn, an attorney for the state.

Attorneys for the social media company disputed that claim, telling jurors the platform does not sell user information.

A majority of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising, and McGinn argued that the company was incentivized to provide targeted advertising opportunities. She said there was limited enforcement if third-party apps harvested users’ personal information and the company did not investigate whether those apps were owned by foreign countries or organizations.

Dane Butswinkas, one of Facebook’s lawyers, said the platform investigated suspicious third-party apps following the breach. He told jurors the company has improved safeguards and privacy policies significantly in the last five years, since the lawsuit was filed.

Butswinkas said Facebook’s revenue and product development teams were kept separate and that despite having five years to investigate the platform’s privacy practices, the state identified only two data breaches.

“How many other Cambridge Analyticas have you heard about in the case? The answer is one,” he said.

Butswinkas also said evidence shows that Facebook protects users from 99% of content that violates its standards and it is in the platform’s best interest to ensure that violent or hateful content is taken down.

The trial included a video deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who answered questions about a list of thousands of accounts that required additional checks before any of their content was removed from Facebook or Instagram.

The prosecution pressed Zuckerberg about an email in which he requested that employees add podcaster Joe Rogan’s accounts to the list.

“It’s not treating people differently to say we have a policy that’s about broad misinformation and not parsing political speech,” Zuckerberg said during the deposition.

Prosecutors said the list created a fact-checking backlog, allowing viral content to be seen by millions of users before being taken down.

Zuckerberg said the company needed to be careful about removing sensitive content and monitoring content is a challenging problem.

The state estimates that about 350,000 residents were exposed to the Cambridge Analytica breach, but McGinn asked jurors to consider that Facebook deceived all New Mexicans when making statements regarding privacy and violent content. Prosecutors estimated there were more than 1.3 million users in the state at the time of the breach.

If jurors agree, the company could potentially be forced to pay billions of dollars.

Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate suit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.

Also this year, New Mexico won judgments totaling $942 million from Meta in a two-phase trial about the company’s safety protections for minors. Furthermore the court ordered Meta to implement new safeguards, including age-verification technology and time limits on its platforms.

The judgments are on hold pending an appeal.

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Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed. ___

Schuettler is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.