New Mexico Trial Accuses Facebook of Deceiving Users on Privacy, Seeks Billions in Penalties
Closing arguments have concluded in a New Mexico trial where attorneys for the state accused Facebook of misleading users about privacy protections on its social media platform. The state is seeking up to $5,000 per violation of its Unfair Practices Act and an injunction to prevent future data breaches. This case stems from a third-party personality quiz that allegedly harvested data from approximately 87 million Facebook profiles, which was then sold to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for targeted advertising. New Mexico is the only state to pursue this data breach claim at trial, as 48 other states reached a settlement with Meta (Facebook's parent company) earlier this year concerning child safety and privacy issues related to the same breach. The state estimates that around 350,000 New Mexico residents were affected by the Cambridge Analytica breach, but prosecutors argue that Facebook deceived all 1.3 million users in the state at the time regarding privacy and content moderation.
