Undercover investigation of Meta heads to trial in New Mexico in first stand-alone case by state

SANTA FE, N.M. — The first stand-alone trial from state prosecutors in a stream of lawsuits against Meta is getting underway in New Mexico, with jury selection starting Monday.

New Mexico's case is built on a state undercover investigation using proxy social media accounts and posing as kids to document sexual solicitations and the response from Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It could give states a new legal pathway to go after social media companies over how their platforms affect children, by using consumer protection and nuisance laws.

Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed suit in 2023, accusing Meta of creating a marketplace and ''breeding ground'' for predators who target children for sexual exploitation and failing to disclose what it knew about those harmful effects.

''So many regulators are keyed up looking for any evidence of a legal theory that would punish social media that a victory in that case could have ripple effects throughout the country, and the globe,'' said Eric Goldman, codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. ''Whatever the jury says will be of substantial interest.''

The trial, with opening statements scheduled for Feb. 9, could last nearly two months.

Meta denies the civil charges and says prosecutors are taking a ''sensationalist'' approach. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was dropped as a defendant in the case, but he has been deposed and documents in the case carry his name.

In California, opening arguments are scheduled this week for a personal injury case in Los Angeles County Superior Court that could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out.

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.

The approach could sidestep immunity provisions for social media platforms under a First Amendment shield and Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act that has protected tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

An undercover investigation by the state created several decoy accounts for minors 14 and younger, documented the arrival of online sexual solicitations and monitored Meta's responses when the behavior was brought to the company's attention. The state says Meta's responses placed profits ahead of children's safety.

Torrez, a first-term Democrat elected in 2022, has urged Meta to implement more effective age verification and remove bad actors from its platform. He's also seeking changes to algorithms that can serve up harmful material and criticizing end-to-end privacy encryption that can prevent the monitoring of communications with children for safety.

Separately, Torrez brought felony criminal charges of child solicitation by electronic devices against three men in 2024, also using decoy social media accounts to build that case.

Meta denies the civil charges while accusing the attorney general of cherry-picking select documents and making ''sensationalist, irrelevant and distracting arguments.''

In a statement, Meta said ongoing lawsuits nationwide are attempting to place the blame for teen mental health struggles on social media companies in a way that oversimplifies matters. It points to the steady addition of account settings and tools — including safety features that give teens more information about the person they're chatting with and content restrictions based on PG-13 movie ratings.

Goldman says the company is bringing enormous resources to bear in courtrooms this year, including New Mexico.

''If they lose this,'' he said, ''it becomes another beachhead that might erode their basic business.''

Many other lawsuits are underway

The bellwether trial underway in California against social video companies, including Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube, focuses on a 19-year-old who claims her use of social media from an early age addicted her to technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. TikTok and Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. settled claims in the case that affects thousands of consolidated plaintiffs.

A federal trial starting in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

In New Mexico, prosecutors also sued Snap Inc. over accusations its platform facilitates child sexual exploitation. Snap says its platform has built-in safety guardrails and ''deliberate design choices to make it difficult for strangers to discover minors.'' A trial date has not been set.

The jury weighs guilt, but a judge has final say on any sanctions

A jury assembled from residents of Santa Fe County, including the politically progressive state capital city, will weigh whether Meta engaged in unfair business practices and to what extent.

The state's Unfair Practices Act allows penalties of $5,000 per violation, but it's not yet clear how violations would be tallied.