Meta jury finds company misled New Mexico residents

Investing.com -- A jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, ruled Friday that Meta Platforms misled state residents in a case related to Cambridge Analytica's access to Facebook user data without consent.

The verdict came after a two-week trial concerning a lawsuit filed by New Mexico's attorney general in 2021. The case originated from 2018 news reports showing that Cambridge Analytica, which worked on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, obtained personal data from up to 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app to profile voters.

The lawsuit claimed Meta made statements that misled New Mexico residents about how their personal information would be shared with third parties, how the platform handled hate speech and misinformation, and whether certain users received preferential treatment in policy enforcement.

State attorneys said Facebook did not inform consumers it was selling their data to outside parties and allowed hate speech or misinformation to be shared when it benefited the company financially.

Judge Francis Mathew will now determine the monetary penalties Meta must pay for the violations the jury identified.

The state's case focused on specific statements, including remarks by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company blog posts, which New Mexico said led people to believe they controlled their shared personal information and that the platform had uniform policies for handling hate speech or misinformation. The state argued Meta was actually selling data to third-party apps, including the one Cambridge Analytica used, and had policy exceptions for certain users.

Meta's attorneys argued the allegedly misleading statements were excerpts taken out of context, ignoring portions where the company acknowledged its handling of misinformation or privacy issues was not perfect. They said the company continuously improves and does not benefit from harmful content on its platform.

Meta denied that it sells user information.

Original Article

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