New Mexico has a plan to fix Facebook and Instagram

Still fresh from recent times $375 million jury verdict Against Meta, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez’s office has begun making larger demands in the second phase of a landmark trial. On Monday, the state’s attorney, David Ackerman, pressed the court for a $3.7 billion mitigation plan that would require Meta to fund programs for mental health providers, law enforcement, and educators. Other requests include changes to Meta’s services — such as age verification, a 99 percent detection rate for new child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and no late-night or school-day notifications for teens in the state.

During opening statements, the state said only this type of comprehensive plan could solve the safety and public health issues that Meta poses for minors in New Mexico. Ackerman said the plan “acknowledges the extent of the public inconvenience caused by Meta.” On the other hand, Meta said that the prosecutor’s requests are so far-fetched and unenforceable that he can have no choice but to Leave the country permanently If Judge Brian Bedscheid forces her to comply with the plan.

Bedscheid indicated that he also had some reservations. While he wants to address any identified harms, he said it is “not the easiest sell on the idea of ​​one person becoming a legislator, a judge and an executive implementing the provisions of administrative law.” Although he said he was open to learning more during the trial, he expressed concern that some of the states’ requests “might amount to some of this overreach.”

Whatever Bedscheid decides, it could indicate how far the judge is willing to go to address alleged harms on social media. There are still thousands Other cases awaiting trial are against social media companies on similar grounds, and such rulings could serve as a reference point during settlement talks.

In March, a Santa Fe jury determined that Meta committed 75,000 violations of the state’s unfair practices law, finding that it misled users about the safety of its products for teens and engaged in unconscionable business practices by facilitating the exploitation of children on its services. In the second phase of the trial, Biedscheid will determine whether Meta’s actions went beyond harm to individual users, and also created general inconvenience to the broader community. He will also decide on appropriate rest. This could range from the state’s dramatic roadmap for changes to some of the more modest tweaks proposed by Meta — which include funding cybercrime training for law enforcement, and a commitment to improving age assurance models for detecting children under 13.

Because he presided over the first phase of the trial, Bedscheid warned the parties that he was “not a clean slate.” Even under what he called “a somewhat restrictive definition of calculating a civil penalty,” the jury found that Meta’s thousands of violations warranted the maximum penalty of $5,000 each. But he also noted that he’s well aware of the First Amendment concerns that might come with some of the proposals, and the problems they might have with Section 230, the law that protects social media companies from being held liable for their users’ speech.

In his opening statement, Ackerman, the state’s attorney, told the judge that Meta doesn’t take action to address her issues until she “has to.” “It cannot be the case that safety features are implemented only when there are experiments or when there are experiments Wall Street Journal “The articles,” Ackerman said, adding that the judge has “broad and flexible powers” ​​to address the mental health crisis that he said is “fueled and caused by social media.”

The state addressed some common criticisms of its proposed solutions. Ackerman told the judge they were not asking the court to “impose a specific age verification system,” but rather a “menu” of options that, when combined, could increase its effectiveness. Meta’s concerns that it is impossible to achieve a 99 percent standard for detecting new chemical weapons could be alleviated, according to Ackerman, by having the court-appointed child safety monitor lower the standard if they believe Meta did everything she reasonably could. Despite the privacy concerns caused by eliminating encryption, Ackerman said, “the risks to minors from encrypted messages far outweigh the privacy concerns for this population.”

Meta barrister Alex Parkinson admitted he would not attempt to re-litigate the jury’s findings at this stage of the trial, and said the firm “does not underestimate the importance of young people’s mental health”. “But the state’s proposed injunction is overly broad, vague, impractical, dangerous, and conflicts with other laws,” Bakinson said. “I have just learned for the first time that the controller can change the terms of the injunction on the spot. This is unreasonable.”

Parkinson accused the state of trying to “triple back,” by allowing individual citizens to pursue personal injury claims against Meta, allowing the Attorney General to pursue the unfair practice claims he won in the first phase, and the public nuisance claim he is seeking in this second phase. After the jury received a multi-million-dollar award, he said, “the additional accrual is not necessary, and it is an invitation to expand the law beyond what it can bear.”

Parkinson said the state’s proposal would face legal issues that have hampered Meta’s own plans before — age verification, for example, could run afoul of the federal Children’s Privacy Act. Parkinson insisted that contrary to the state’s assertions, Meta’s claim that she may have to leave the state is far from a PR stunt. He added that unlike the polluted air everyone needs to breathe in a factory, social media users can simply stay away from apps for two weeks.

He expanded the factory analogy to claim that the proposed $3.7 billion payment for the “ultimate impact” of Meta’s conduct is illegal. Parkinson said the subsidies were supposed to be the equivalent of “making you pay to build a filter on chimneys, not to build hospitals for 15 years to cover health care for people breathing air.” “These people have personal injury claims.”

After opening statements, the state called its first two witnesses. The first was New Mexico’s lead suicide prevention coordinator, who testified to the role of social media and other factors in adolescent mental health. The second was a special agent who investigated child exploitation crimes. When the multi-week trial is over, Bedscheid will need to determine whether Meta’s actions affected entire communities, and what he can legally do about it.