In closing arguments Monday, New Mexico prosecutors beseeched a Santa Fe jury to award more than $2 billion for the damage the state says social media giant Meta inflicted on the state’s teen users of the company’s social media platforms.
The request marked the conclusion of a seven-week trial sparked by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s 2023 lawsuit alleging that Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws and misled the public on the risks for young users’ mental health and risk levels of sexual exploitation.
On Monday, Linda Singer, one of the private attorneys representing New Mexico alongside the New Mexico Department of Justice,highlighted testimony and internal documents the state says show that Meta misrepresented precautionary measures to prevent adults from contacting underage users, and prioritized growth and ad revenue at the expense of safety.
“Meta had the resources to prevent these harms, but instead of preventing them in real life, it misrepresented that it had,” Singer said.
The state came to its damages figure by applying the maximum penalty of $5,000 for one count of misrepresentation of the sites’ safety and another count for “unconscionable practices” to 203,800, which Singer said is the number of teens impacted.
She said the state sought the maximum civil penalties “based on the nature and the enormity of the wrong.”
Attorneys for Meta disputed the state’s calculations in the request for damages and the number of reported teens using the platforms in their closing arguments, and disputed the state’s claims.
Kevin Huff, one of the attorneys representing Meta, contended the state had failed to prove that Meta intentionally designed its apps to harm teens called the damages request a means of seeking “cold hard cash” from Meta.
“The state is asking you to base a $2 billion judgment on speculation because they didn’t provide you with the evidence during the trial that would allow you to calculate the number, and for that reason, the penalty amount should be zero,” Huff said.
Jury deliberations began late Monday afternoon and were scheduled to resume Tuesday morning.
