Walt Rubel Commentary: NM jury tries to hold social media accountable

Congratulations to New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who was able to win a small slice of justice for children in our state who have been victimized by social media.

Last week, a jury in Santa Fe found that Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) violated state law by misleading consumers about their safety and allowing children to be sexually exploited.

The jury found that Meta had knowingly engaged in unfair or deceptive trade practices, and that its acts were “unconscionable.” They found a whopping 75,000 violations and awarded $15,000 per violation for a judgment of $375 million - which seemed like a lot of money before Project Jupiter came along.

It’s chump change for Meta. The real danger for the company comes during the next stage of the trial in May when the court will consider a request by the state to force Meta to make changes to its platforms to safeguard children.

The six-week trial followed a classic sting operation; the kind that gave Chris Hansen his 15 minutes of fame. Investigators for the AGs Office went online pretending to be underage children. Those accounts received sexually explicit material, even though the users signed up as being younger than 14. And, they received solicitations from adults, some of whom are now facing criminal charges.

The verdict in New Mexico was one of two handed down against the company last week, and for different reasons. A jury in California found Meta liable for intentionally making its platforms addictive to young users.

Other cases around the country are working their way through the legal system. And I applaud all of them. But, litigation is a poor substitute for regulation.

Congress has known about the problem for years. In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, warned members of the Senate Commerce Committee about the company’s lack of safeguards for children and intentional efforts to addict users. 

She was the first of many. Congress has held numerous finger-wagging hearings since then. They went so far as to force Mark Zuckerberg to turn around and apologize to the grieving parents whose children lost their lives after encounters started on social media. What they didn’t do is change the law.

Zuckerberg’s shaming  made for great TV, but didn’t fix a thing. After all of the hearings and hand-wringing and consternation, Congress has still failed to take any meaningful action. Except once, with TikTok, and then they were overruled by the president.

Meta lawyers claim that it is shielded from litigation by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and they may be right. It will be up to an appeals court to determine if the judgments are enforced.

Section 230 was passed at the dawn of the Internet age and was intended to protect what was a fledgling technology still in its infancy.  It shields Internet sites from libel laws. If slanderous lies are printed in the newspaper or uttered on TV or radio, those businesses can be held accountable. But the same lies can be spread online with impunity.

Congress has failed to protect us, but we aren't powerless. Now that we know the dangers, we can all take action to limit our social media engagement and safeguard children. Just turn it off.


Walter Rubel can be reached at [email protected]

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