As Meta heads to trial in the state of New Mexico for allegedly failing to protect minors from sexual exploitation, the company is making an aggressive push to have certain information excluded from the court proceedings.
The company has petitioned the judge to exclude certain research studies and articles around social media and youth mental health; any mention of a recent high-profile case involving teen suicide and social media content; and any references to Meta’s financial resources, the personal activities of employees, and Mark Zuckerberg’s time as a student at Harvard University.
Meta’s requests to exclude information, known as motions in limine, are a standard part of pretrial proceedings, in which a party can ask a judge to determine in advance which evidence or arguments are permissible in court. This is to ensure the jury is presented with facts and not irrelevant or prejudicial information and that the defendant is granted a fair trial.
Meta has emphasized in pretrial motions that the only questions the jury should be asked are whether Meta violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act because of how it has allegedly handled child safety and youth mental health, and that other information—such as Meta’s alleged election interference and misinformation, or privacy violations—shouldn’t be factored in.
But some of the requests seem unusually aggressive, two legal scholars tell WIRED, including requests that the court not mention the company’s AI chatbots, and the extensive reputation protection Meta is seeking. WIRED was able to review Meta’s in limine requests through a public records request from the New Mexico courts.
These motions are part of a landmark case brought by New Mexico attorney general Raúl Torrez in late 2023. The state is alleging that Meta failed to protect minors from online solicitation, human trafficking, and sexual abuse on its platforms. It claims the company proactively served pornographic content to minors on its apps and failed to enact certain child safety measures.
The state complaint details how its investigators were easily able to set up fake Facebook and Instagram accounts posing as underage girls, and how these accounts were soon sent explicit messages and shown algorithmically amplified pornographic content. In another test case cited in the complaint, investigators created a fake account as a mother looking to traffic her young daughter. According to the complaint, Meta did not flag suggestive remarks that other users commented on her posts, nor did it shut down some of the accounts that were reported to be in violation of Meta’s policies.
Meta spokesperson Aaron Simpson told WIRED via email that the company has, for over a decade, listened to parents, experts, and law enforcement, and has conducted in-depth research, to “understand the issues that matter the most,” and to “use these insights to make meaningful changes—like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with tools to manage their teens’ experiences.”
“While New Mexico makes sensationalist, irrelevant and distracting arguments, we’re focused on demonstrating our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” Simpson said. “We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’re always working to do better.”
In its motions ahead of the New Mexico trial, Meta asked that the court exclude any references to a public advisory published by Vivek Murthy, the former US surgeon general, about social media and youth mental health. It also asked the court to exclude an op-ed article by Murthy and Murthy’s calls for social media to come with a warning label. Meta argues that the former surgeon general’s statements treat social media companies as a monolith and are “irrelevant, inadmissible hearsay, and unduly prejudicial.”
Meta has also insisted that the state of New Mexico should not be able to admit in court any third-party surveys—or Meta’s own internal surveys—that purport to show a high amount of inappropriate content on Meta’s platforms, because the surveys are, in legal terms, hearsay.
The social media giant seems particularly concerned that its CEO’s reputation, the company’s past privacy violations, and its overall dominance in social media could unfairly sway the jury. Meta has asked the court to preclude the state from introducing any argument, testimony, or evidence about Zuckerberg’s college years, saying “any effort by the state to pluck unflattering comments or incidents from when Mr. Zuckerberg (now in his 40s) was a college student would be both unfairly prejudicial and an impermissible use of propensity evidence to attack Mr. Zuckerberg’s and Meta’s character.” (Zuckerberg famously created an attractiveness-rating website in 2003; Meta’s lawyers have also sought to keep this information out of court in a consolidated trial in California that’s set to begin later this month.)
Meta has also requested that any evidence regarding Meta’s finances, “including its financial size, financial condition, market capitalization, revenues, profits, and wealth—as well as the wealth, compensation, and personal activities of its officers and employees,” be precluded.
It asks that the court not refer to former Meta employees or contractors who the state may call as witnesses as “whistleblowers,” insisting the word “whistleblower” is a legal term of art and that inaccurate or misleading references to people who may not qualify as whistleblowers “would serve only to inflame and confuse the jury.” And it has asked the court that any law enforcement officials who appear as witnesses not appear in uniform.
Meta also wants the court to exclude any reference to Molly Russell, a British teenager who died by suicide in 2017 after consuming content on social media that depicted self-harm and suicide. Meta has argued that “evidence about her use of Instagram and material she allegedly saw on Instagram, her tragic death by suicide, and the United Kingdom Coroner’s investigation into her death” bear no connection to New Mexico or Meta’s case there, nor does the testimony of Russell’s father.
And, despite the company’s recent massive investments into and promotions of its artificial intelligence products, Meta has asked the New Mexico court to exclude any mention of its AI chatbots, stating, “This case has never been about AI chatbots,” and that introducing a “new, complex subject—emerging AI chatbot technology—would risk confusing and misleading the jury about the conduct and statements actually at issue.”
Some of these requests, such as withholding references to “previous cases, Meta’s wealth, or Mark Zuckerberg’s college hotness-rating app, seem pretty standard and straightforward,” says Mark Lemley, a partner at litigation firm Lex Lumina and the William H. Neukom Professor at Stanford Law School. “But other requests from Meta seem quite aggressive, such as no reference to self-harm, or state-wide harms, or chatbots, for instance.”
“It’s hard to know without being closer to the case whether there is a specific reason for those requests, though,” Lemley added. (Lemley previously defended Meta in a high-profile copyright lawsuit, then parted ways with the company because of what he described as the company’s “descent into toxic masculinity and neo-Nazi madness.”)
Meta’s alleged failures to prevent child exploitation on its apps have been previously reported. Over the past two years the social media company has been sued by more than 40 US states for allegedly harming youth mental health and has come under fire for reportedly halting internal research that showed that people who stopped using Facebook apps were less depressed and anxious.
The New Mexico case is now headed to trial court for jury selection in Santa Fe on February 2; hearings have been ongoing leading up to the trial.
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