Meta Says Child Safety Isn’t Guaranteed in New Mexico AG’s Trial

Meta Platforms Inc. told a jury in New Mexico during opening statements of an anticipated six-week trial that it continually tells Facebook and Instagram users that it can’t guarantee child safety on the platforms.

“Meta repeatedly has warned parents and teens and everyone that harmful content does get past Meta’s safe guards,” attorney Kevin Huff of Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick PLLC told the jury Monday. “Meta disclosed this, it did not deceive anyone.”

The social media giant is seeking to defend a lawsuit from New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez that claims the platforms enables adults to connect with children to obtain sexually explicit images and become a digital marketplace for “enormous volumes” of child sexual abuse material.

The trial in New Mexico state court kicked off the same day as Meta and Google LLC face the start of a different trial in California state court in Los Angeles, where the companies are defending claims that their platforms addicted a teenage girl and caused her depression and anxiety.

The New Mexico case stems from an undercover investigation by Torrez’s office that created decoy accounts of children 14-years and younger that were served sexually explicit images and posts even when they didn’t express interest in that content.

Meta failed to detect and disable a decoy Facebook account of a fictional mother who offered her 13-year-old daughter for trafficking, the AG’s lawsuit alleged, which was filed in 2023 in the state’s Santa Fe District Court.

Donald Migliori, an attorney for the New Mexico AG’s office, told the jury during opening statements that Meta’s claims about safety were entirely misrepresented, violating the state’s consumer protection laws against deception.

“Despite these public misrepresentations, the evidence will be that internally, Meta clearly knew that youth safety is not its corporate priority,” Migliori said during opening statements, were were broadcast on Court View Network.

The case is State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms Inc., N.M. Dist. Ct., No. D-101-CV-2023-02838, 2/9/26.