7 hrs ago
New Mexico Privacy Trial Against Facebook Reaches Jury
New Mexico says Facebook did not do enough to protect people’s personal information.
The case involves a quiz that collected information from about 87 million Facebook profiles.
That information was shared with Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting company.
Lawyers for New Mexico say Facebook misled users about how safe their information was.
Facebook’s lawyers say the company does not sell user information and has improved its protections.
The jury must decide whether Facebook broke New Mexico’s consumer-protection law.
It must also decide how many violations occurred.
A judge would later decide how much money Facebook should pay for each violation.
The state says the possible penalties could reach billions of dollars.
New Mexico accused Facebook of deceiving users about privacy protections and violating state law.
The case focuses on a personality quiz that obtained data from roughly 87 million profiles and shared it with Cambridge Analytica.
The state estimates about 350,000 New Mexico residents were exposed, while prosecutors cited more than 1.3 million state users.
Facebook’s attorneys said the company does not sell user information and has substantially improved its privacy safeguards.
New Mexico is seeking penalties of up to $5,000 per violation and an order requiring stronger protections.
- Who
- The State of New Mexico and Facebook, which is owned by Meta, are the parties in the case.
- What
- A jury is deciding whether Facebook violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act by misleading users and failing to protect their data.
- Where
- The trial is taking place in New Mexico.
- When
- Closing arguments took place Wednesday after two weeks of evidence; the lawsuit was filed five years earlier.
- Why
- The case concerns Facebook’s handling of data collected from roughly 87 million profiles through a third-party personality quiz and its statements about privacy protections.
New Mexico’s allegations
Facebook’s defense
Privacy protections
New Mexico’s allegations
New Mexico says Facebook deceived users about privacy protections, failed to adequately monitor third-party applications, and allowed personal information to be harvested.
Facebook’s defense
Facebook says it does not sell user information and has significantly strengthened its safeguards and privacy policies since the lawsuit was filed.
Extent of violations
New Mexico’s allegations
The state wants jurors to consider statements affecting all New Mexico users and says the company could face billions of dollars in penalties.
Facebook’s defense
Facebook’s attorneys said the state identified only two data breaches despite having five years to investigate the platform’s privacy practices.
Content enforcement
New Mexico’s allegations
Prosecutors said a list requiring additional checks for certain accounts created a fact-checking backlog that allowed viral content to spread before removal.
Facebook’s defense
Mark Zuckerberg said the company must be careful when removing sensitive content and that monitoring content is difficult; Facebook also said it protects users from 99% of content violating its standards.
Key facts
- Potential penalty
- Up to $5,000 per violation under the state’s request.
- Profiles involved
- Roughly 87 million Facebook profiles were affected by the data collection.
- New Mexico residents exposed
- The state estimates about 350,000 residents were exposed.
- New Mexico users
- Prosecutors estimated more than 1.3 million users in the state at the time of the breach.
- Company involved
- Meta owns Facebook and Instagram.
- Data recipient
- The information was sold to Cambridge Analytica for targeted advertising.
- Jury’s task
- Jurors must determine whether violations occurred and, if so, how many.
Quotes
Dane Butswinkas
Attorney representing Facebook
“We became the product for Facebook. They turned our dreams into data they could sell to advertisers.”
livemint.com
“How many other Cambridge Analyticas have you heard about in the case? The answer is one.”
livemint.com
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta chief executive officer
“It’s not treating people differently to say we have a policy that’s about broad misinformation and not parsing political speech.”
livemint.com
Sources
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