Today, Meta went to trial in the state of New Mexico for allegedly failing to protect minors from sexual exploitation on its apps, including Facebook and Instagram. The state claims that Meta violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act by implementing design features and algorithms that created dangerous conditions for users. Now, more than two years after the case was filed, opening arguments have begun in Santa Fe.
It’s a big week for Meta in court: A landmark social media trial kicks off in California today as well, the nation’s first legal test of social media addiction. That case is part of a “JCCP”, or judicial council coordinated proceedings, that brings together many civil suits that focus on similar issues.
The plaintiffs in that case allege that social media companies designed their products in a negligent manner and caused various harms to minors using their apps. Snap, TikTok, and Google were named as defendants alongside Meta; Snap and TikTok have already settled. The fact that Meta has not means that some of the company’s top executives may be called to the witness stand in the coming weeks.
Meta executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, are not likely to testify live in the New Mexico trial. But the proceedings may still be noteworthy for a few reasons. It’s the first standalone, state-led case against Meta that has actually gone to trial in the US. It’s also a highly charged case alleging child sexual exploitation that will ultimately lean on very technical arguments, including what it means to “mislead” the public, how algorithmic amplification works on social media, and what protections Meta and other social media platforms have through Section 230.
And, while Meta’s top brass might not be required to appear in person, executive depositions and testimonies from other witnesses could still offer an interesting look at the inner workings of the company as it established policies around underage users and responded to complaints that claim it wasn’t doing enough to protect them.
Meta has so far given no indication that it plans to settle. The company has denied the allegations, and Meta spokesperson Aaron Simpson told WIRED previously, “While New Mexico makes sensationalist, irrelevant and distracting arguments, we’re focused on demonstrating our longstanding commitment to supporting young people…We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’re always working to do better.”
Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, a tech industry watchdog, said in an emailed statement that these two trials represent “the split screen of Mark Zuckerberg’s nightmares: a landmark trial in Los Angeles over addicting children to Facebook and Instagram, and a trial in New Mexico exposing how Meta enabled predators to use social media to exploit and abuse kids.”
“These are the trials of a generation,” Haworth added. “Just as the world watched courtrooms hold Big Tobacco and Big Pharma accountable, we will, for the first time, see Big Tech CEOs like Zuckerberg take the stand.”
The Cost of Doing Business
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed his complaint against Meta in December 2023. In it, he alleged that Meta proactively served underage users explicit content, enabled adults to exploit children on the platform, allowed Facebook and Instagram users to easily find child pornography, and allowed an investigator on the case, purporting to be a mother, to offer her underage daughter to sex traffickers.
The trial is expected to take place over seven weeks. Last week jurors were selected, a panel of 10 women and eight men (12 jurors and six alternates). New Mexico First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid is presiding over the case.
In the months leading up to trial, Meta submitted more than 40 motions in limine, or requests that the judge exclude or limit certain information that could unfairly sway a jury. These are standard procedures in cases like this, and within Meta’s rights to argue that some content brought to trial could be irrelevant to the case at hand.
But WIRED reported that Meta’s preliminary requests were extensive. Among these requests, Meta asked that the judge ban the court from mentioning Mark Zuckerberg’s time spent as an undergraduate at Harvard University; referring to the company’s financial status or wealth; citing articles from the former US surgeon general about social media’s mental health harms; citing third-party surveys or Meta’s own internal surveys that purport to show a high amount of inappropriate content on Meta’s apps; referencing Meta’s AI chatbots; and more.
Some of Meta’s requests were granted. For example, per Meta’s request, the judge ruled that the word “whistleblower” is not permitted in the courtroom, and during this morning’s opening arguments the plaintiff used phrases like “prior employees who have expertise” instead. But other requests, like Meta asking the court to ban references to mental health harms, AI chatbots, or third-party surveys, were denied. Meta also sought to block a video livestream of the trial, but was rejected.
Meta has brought in outside counsel from Washington, DC-based litigation firm Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick to assist with this case. Prior to this, the firm defended Meta in a case brought against the company by the FTC, which had argued that Meta was a monopoly in personal social networking and should unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The antitrust case was considered the most consequential threat to Meta’s dominance since the company’s inception, but Meta’s lawyers successfully argued that the company faces plenty of competition from other social media platforms.
Meta is hoping for another win in New Mexico, and will try to prove that it was proactive about removing harmful content from its platforms and transparent with users about potential risks. The company is also likely to refer to the protections of Section 230, a well-known provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act which shields online platforms from being liable for the third-party content people post on their sites.
“Meta is likely to make a variety of arguments, some of which may have merit, some of which will have no merit, because when we look at their previous filings or stances in litigation, this has been their pattern,” says Mary Graw Leary, a leading criminal law and procedure scholar at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., who is not involved in the Meta case. She points out that one reason why Meta and other tech platforms have leaned heavily on Section 230 in response to lawsuits is because if the argument is successful, courts will dismiss the case before discovery.
“They have a right to vigorously defend themselves, but I suspect that because this trial may be viewed as a ‘cost of doing business’ to them, Meta will try its best to exclude information that they don’t want the public to see,” Graw Leary says.
In a series of posts on X leading up to the trial, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone maintained that the New Mexico Attorney General has led an “ethically compromised investigation into Meta that knowingly put real children at risk,” and that Torrez has been “actively raising money for his political campaign and building his reelection bid off the back of his criticism of Meta.”
Chelsea Pitvorec, deputy communications director at the New Mexico Department of Justice, said that the state’s lawsuit alleges that Meta has misled the public about dangers on its platforms for years, and that instead of making its products safer, “Meta is spending its time and resources falsely smearing law enforcement officials who put child predators behind bars. The company is deflecting attention from New Mexico’s undercover investigation because even Meta’s highest-paid PR flacks cannot defend why Meta’s platforms expose children to criminals.”
“We look forward to presenting the jury with the evidence we’ve obtained in over two years of litigation,” Pitvorec said.
In terms of remedies, the state is seeking civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation of the Unfair Practices Act, which, depending on how the violations are counted, could mean millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars for Meta. And Torrez has already signaled that he wants Meta to make significant changes to its platform. In a letter sent to Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri in December 2025, he asked the executives to stop marketing Teen Account content as “PG-13” and implement meaningful safety protections for children.
“This also includes, among other steps, promptly and broadly enacting effective age verification, removing bad actors from the platform, addressing harmful algorithms that proactively serve dangerous content, and resolving the safety risks created by end-to-end encryption,” Torrez wrote.
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