United States of America: New Mexico Attorney General's Office filed consumer protection lawsuit against Meta Platforms over alleged child safety failures and deceptive platform practices

On 5 December 2023, the New Mexico Attorney General's Office filed a complaint in the First Judicial District Court, County of Santa Fe, against Meta Platforms, Instagram, Meta Payments, and Meta Platforms Technologies. The complaint alleges violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act (NMSA 1978, Sections 57-12-1 to -26) and public nuisance under NMSA 1978, Section 30-8-8 and common law. The complaint alleges that Meta knowingly exposed minors to Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), and human trafficking through its Facebook and Instagram platforms, and that Meta designed platform features, including engagement-based feeds, infinite scroll, push notifications, ephemeral content, and autoplay video, to foster addictive use among young users. The complaint further alleges that Meta made misleading public statements regarding platform safety and relied on a flawed "prevalence" metric that materially underreported harmful content. The complaint seeks civil penalties of USD 5'000 per violation, injunctive relief, disgorgement of profits, and abatement of the public nuisance.