New Mexico Trial: Facebook Accused of Deceiving Millions Over Cambridge Analytica Breach
Closing arguments wrapped in New Mexico's trial over Facebook's failure to protect 87 million user profiles harvested by Cambridge Analytica. The state seeks up to $5,000 per violation.
New Mexico Presses Facebook on Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal at Trial's Close
Closing arguments concluded Wednesday in a New Mexico state court trial over Facebook's alleged failure to shield users from a third-party data breach that affected roughly 87 million profiles worldwide, ABC News US reports.
Attorneys for New Mexico told jurors that Facebook deceived its users about the privacy protections the platform offered, and urged them to find the company liable for thousands of violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act. Jurors heard two weeks of evidence before deliberations began; the judge — not the jury — will set the dollar amount owed per violation if liability is found.
New Mexico is seeking the maximum civil penalty of $5,000 per violation and an injunction to prevent future breaches of user data.
The Cambridge Analytica case
The lawsuit centers on accusations that Facebook allowed a third-party personality quiz to harvest data from approximately 87 million user profiles. That data was then sold to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which used it to build targeted advertising for clients that included Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Cambridge Analytica has since shut down.
"We became the product for Facebook. They turned our dreams into data they could sell to advertisers," said Randi McGinn, an attorney representing New Mexico.
Attorneys for Facebook disputed that characterization, telling jurors the platform does not sell user information directly. Dane Butswinkas, one of Facebook's lawyers, argued that the company has significantly improved its safeguards and privacy policies in the five years since the lawsuit was filed. He noted that despite having that same five-year window to investigate the platform's privacy practices, state prosecutors identified only two data breaches.
"How many other Cambridge Analyticas have you heard about in the case? The answer is one," Butswinkas told the jury.
Butswinkas also said Facebook's revenue and product development teams operate separately, and that the platform successfully removes content that violates its standards in 99% of cases.
Zuckerberg deposition and the content watchlist
The trial included a video deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was questioned about an internal list of thousands of accounts — including that of podcaster Joe Rogan — that required additional review before any content could be removed from Facebook or Instagram.
Prosecutors pressed Zuckerberg on an email in which he personally requested that Rogan's accounts be added 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 in the deposition.
State prosecutors argued the watchlist created a fact-checking backlog that allowed viral content to reach millions of users before action was taken. Zuckerberg acknowledged that monitoring content is a "challenging problem" and that the company must exercise caution when removing sensitive material.
New Mexico goes it alone
New Mexico is the only state to have brought the Cambridge Analytica data breach claims to trial. Earlier this year, 48 other states reached a landmark settlement with Meta — Facebook's parent company, which also owns Instagram — addressing child safety and privacy issues connected to the same breach. Florida was the sole other holdout, citing the settlement's insufficient penalties.
Buried in the 130-page multistate settlement, signed in August for up to $18 billion, was a clause releasing Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica breach — effectively leaving New Mexico as the last jurisdiction pursuing the matter in court.
The state estimates that around 350,000 of its residents were directly exposed to the Cambridge Analytica breach. McGinn asked jurors to go further, however, arguing that Facebook deceived all New Mexicans through its broader statements about privacy and content moderation. Prosecutors put the total number of Facebook users in New Mexico at the time of the breach at more than 1.3 million.
Should the jury find Facebook liable across that broader population, the resulting penalties could run into the billions of dollars.
Prior judgments against Meta
New Mexico has already secured significant legal wins against the tech giant on a separate but related front. Earlier this year, courts awarded the state judgments totaling $942 million from Meta following a two-phase trial over the company's safety protections for minors. The court additionally ordered Meta to implement new safeguards, including age-verification technology and time limits on its platforms. Those judgments are currently on hold pending appeal.
The verdict in the Cambridge Analytica privacy trial is now in the hands of the jury.
Source: ABC News US