By Diana Novak Jones
Sept 25 (Reuters) – A jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, found on Friday that Meta Platforms misled the state’s residents in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm involved in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their consent.
The verdict followed a two-week trial over a lawsuit filed by New Mexico’s attorney general in 2021, three years after news reports revealed that the firm, Cambridge Analytica, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.
A Meta spokesperson said the company disagreed with the verdict and would continue to defend itself “against efforts to distort our record.”
“Meta’s platforms are forums for free expression,” the spokesperson said. “We have a First Amendment right to manage those platforms in a way we believe best serves the interests of our community. This means prioritizing free speech, protecting our users’ information and giving them control over their data.”
At a press conference after the verdict was announced, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the case revealed “in stark detail the way in which this company plays fast and loose with the rules.”
The state accused Meta of misleading New Mexicans about how it shared user data with third parties and enforced policies on hate speech and misinformation. New Mexico argued that Facebook failed to disclose that it sold user data to outside parties and allowed harmful content to spread when doing so benefited the company’s bottom line.
Jurors found 26 of 29 statements identified by the state were misleading, including comments about user data, hate speech and misinformation. They rejected claims that Meta misled consumers in statements about its efforts to remove harmful content and its fact-checking practices.
MAXIMUM PENALTY SOUGHT
Judge Francis Mathew will now determine civil penalties after jurors found more than 43 million violations, based on the number of people affected by the company’s misleading statements. Under New Mexico law, Mathew can award up to $5,000 per violation.
Torrez said his office is evaluating how much to seek but will push for the maximum penalty based on the jury’s findings.
The state will also ask Mathew to direct Meta to make changes, which could include corrections to its past misstatements as well as an audit of the way it manages user data, Torrez said.
MISLEADING CLAIMS DETAILED
The state’s lawsuit focused on specific statements, including comments made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg or in company blog posts, that New Mexico said made people believe they had control over the personal information they shared on the site, or that the site had blanket policies for how it dealt with hate speech or misinformation. Meta was selling the data to third-party apps, like the one that Cambridge Analytica relied on, and had exceptions to its policies for certain users, the state said.
Attorneys for Meta had argued at trial that the allegedly misleading statements were cherry-picked snippets that ignored critical context from the same statements, in which the company had repeatedly acknowledged its handling of misinformation or privacy issues was not perfect.
Meta also denied that it sells users’ information.
Reuters viewed the trial on Courtroom View Network.
EARLIER NEW MEXICO CASE
The verdict marks the second time in six months a jury in Santa Fe has weighed a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico against Meta Platforms.
In the first trial, which ended in March, a Santa Fe jury found Meta misled users about young users’ safety on its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms and ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties. After a second phase of that trial, a judge directed the company to pay $567 million into a New Mexico fund for teen mental health and ordered Meta to implement measures to protect teen Facebook and Instagram users in New Mexico.
A few weeks after the judge’s ruling, Meta reached a sweeping settlement with 47 US states, Washington, D.C., and US territories, agreeing to pay a maximum of about $16.7 billion to resolve claims that it designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young children. As part of that deal, it agreed to pay a handful of states that had sued the company over privacy violations related to Cambridge Analytica $459 million to resolve those cases.
New Mexico was not part of the settlement, so its case over Cambridge Analytica moved forward to trial.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Nia Williams and Matthew Lewis)
