Facebook accused of deceiving users in New Mexico as trial over privacy
scandal wraps up
[September 24, 2026] By
MIKELLA SCHUETTLER
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.
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 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.
___
Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, contributed.
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