Facebook accused of deceiving users in New Mexico as trial over privacy scandal wraps up - By Mikella Schuettler, Associated Press/Report For America
Attorneys representing New Mexico accused Facebook of deceiving users about privacy protections on the social media platform and encouraged jurors during closing arguments Wednesday to find the company liable for thousands of violations of state law.
Jurors heard two weeks of evidence and must now decide whether Facebook violated the state's Unfair Practices Act and if so, how many times. It would then be up to the judge to determine how much the company would pay per violation.
New Mexico is the only state that has taken the data breach claims to trial as part of its go-it-alone approach to press for more accountability from Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Earlier this year 48 states reached a landmark settlement with Meta that addressed child safety concerns and privacy issues surrounding the same data breach.
New Mexico is seeking the maximum civil penalties, up to $5,000 per violation, and an injunction to halt future breaches of user data.
The case centers on accusations that Facebook failed to protect users from a third-party personality quiz that harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, to generate targeted ads. The now-defunct firm's clients included the 2016 campaign for Donald Trump.
"We became the product for Facebook. They turned our dreams into data they could sell to advertisers," said Randi McGinn, an attorney for the state.
Attorneys for the social media company disputed that claim, telling jurors the platform does not sell user information.
A majority of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising, and McGinn argued that the company was incentivized to provide targeted advertising opportunities. She said there was limited enforcement if third-party apps harvested users' personal information and the company did not investigate whether those apps were owned by foreign countries or organizations.
Dane Butswinkas, one of Facebook's lawyers, said the platform investigated suspicious third-party apps following the breach. He told jurors the company has improved safeguards and privacy policies significantly in the last five years, since the lawsuit was filed.
Butswinkas said Facebook's revenue and product development teams were kept separate and that despite having five years to investigate the platform's privacy practices, the state identified only two data breaches.
"How many other Cambridge Analyticas have you heard about in the case? The answer is one," he said.
Butswinkas also said evidence shows that Facebook protects users from 99% of content that violates its standards and it is in the platform's best interest to ensure that violent or hateful content is taken down.
The trial included a video deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who answered questions about a list of thousands of accounts that required additional checks before any of their content was removed from Facebook or Instagram.
The prosecution pressed Zuckerberg about an email in which he requested that employees add podcaster Joe Rogan's accounts to the list.
"It's not treating people differently to say we have a policy that's about broad misinformation and not parsing political speech," Zuckerberg said during the deposition.
Prosecutors said the list created a fact-checking backlog, allowing viral content to be seen by millions of users before being taken down.
Zuckerberg said the company needed to be careful about removing sensitive content and monitoring content is a challenging problem.
The state estimates that about 350,000 residents were exposed to the Cambridge Analytica breach, but McGinn asked jurors to consider that Facebook deceived all New Mexicans when making statements regarding privacy and violent content. Prosecutors estimated there were more than 1.3 million users in the state at the time of the breach.
If jurors agree, the company could potentially be forced to pay billions of dollars.
Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate suit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.
Also this year, New Mexico won judgments totaling $942 million from Meta in a two-phase trial about the company's safety protections for minors. Furthermore the court ordered Meta to implement new safeguards, including age-verification technology and time limits on its platforms.
The judgments are on hold pending an appeal.
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Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.
Schuettler is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
PFAS found in 43 water wells in La Cienega and La Cieneguilla communities, new tests show - Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
A total of 43 wells in the La Cienega and La Cieneguilla communities in Santa Fe County showed ‘forever chemical’ contamination in recent tests, Santa Fe County announced on Monday.
The well testing, which the New Mexico Environment Department undertook, follows a data-sharing agreement the state and county made earlier this year, which “gives opportunities for interaction between our scientists so they can learn from each other in real time,” NMED Special Project Coordinator Andrew Hautzinger said in a statement accompanying the news release announcing the test results. “This gives us the awareness of who is doing what, why they are doing it, and how we can learn together as we move forward.”
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFAS, were first found in the groundwater near the Army National Guard Aviation Support Facility by the Santa Fe Regional Airport in 2023. When the county subsequently tested wells in nearby La Cienega and La Cieneguilla, several wells were found to be contaminated.
Exposure through contaminated water and soil, as well as through the plants and animals, cause PFAS to build up in the human body. While still being studied, PFAS exposure is linked to increased cancer risks,fertility issues,low birth weights or fetal development issues and hormonal imbalances.
In the most recent round of testing, the state environment department found that of the 116 recently sampled wells in La Cieneguilla and La Cienega combined, 26 wells in Cieneguilla tested positive for PFAS contamination, as did 17 wells in La Cienega.
With the aquifer below La Cieneguilla contaminated with PFAS, the news release said, a new public water supply for community members is being prospected by La Cieneguilla Water Company, a not-for-profit company that secured federal funds to assess potential options.
NMED also provided free water filters for those affected by the contamination last November, a month after the department announced that approximately 100 homes in Curry County would be receiving a new water source due to PFAS water contamination from nearby Cannon Air Force Base.
Santa Fe County Utilities Division Director Travis Soderquist said in a statement Monday the new data will help inform the county’s next steps.
“We are trying to get a grasp on the extent and concentration of the contamination and how far it has spread throughout the community,” he said. “We want to know if the contamination is moving, if it’s stationary, or if there’s a continuous introduction of contaminants into the groundwater.”
More than half of New Mexico nears average annual precipitation with late monsoon surge - John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
A belated burst of rain this week is helping New Mexico make up for an exceptionally dry monsoon season, but alleviating entrenched drought throughout the state depends on precipitation persisting through winter.
“We’re probably going to see some minor drought improvements,” said Matt DeMaria, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. “You can’t make up for a bad winter, though, with a good surge of monsoon moisture.”
When it comes to snowfall, all eyes will be on northern New Mexico, where some of the state’s most critical watersheds have withered over the course of two consecutive warm, dry winters.
“Especially in the northern part of the state, drought conditions are heavily dependent on the winter snowpack because a lot of the water supply is driven from winter snowpack,” DeMaria added.
As of Wednesday, the northern third of the state was receiving steady, soaking showers with intermittent bouts of moderate downpour totaling over an inch of rainfall in many areas, according to the National Weather Service.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Data shows New Mexico students making gains in literacy, while math and science trail behind - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
New Mexico public school students made significant gains in reading and literacy over the last year, while math showed modest gains and science remained largely stagnant since 2022, according to recently released data presented to state lawmakers on Wednesday.
The New Mexico Public Education Department’s 2025-2026 school accreditation data evaluates 10 elements, such as attendance, staffing, financial accountability, governance and student outcomes. Its statewide assessment results, the NM Vistas school report cards, evaluate academic achievement, student growth, attendance and graduation rates.
The two accountability systems inform the PED and federal government about which schools need additional support and resources to improve student outcomes.
According to Wednesday’s presentation to the Legislative Education Study Committee by Lynn Vásquez, senior manager of assessment, research, evaluation and accountability for the PED, New Mexico students improved literacy proficiency by 10 percentage points to 44% between 2022 and 2026. Math proficiency improved only one percentage point to 26% during the same time, and science remained at 34%.
Early literacy “is where we have the greatest opportunity to change long-term trajectories for students,” Vásquez said during the meeting in Anthony. “I will also point out that the grade level that had the biggest growth was, again, kindergarten.”
Representatives Joy Garratt (D-Albuquerque) and Catherine Cullen (R-Rio Rancho) both pointed to the stagnant science scores, calling the subject “overlooked” and “underfunded,” respectively.
“Science gets overlooked because of the drive for math and language arts, reading,” Garratt said during the meeting. “We’re a state where science, emerging science, is vital, it’s exciting. You can’t do science without hands-on [experience.]”
PED Secretary Mariana Padilla added that science is one of the subject areas that can get kids excited and engaged in learning. “They tend to be hands-on. They allow you to hopefully get outside, get dirty, explore the world around you and really overlooking those content areas are really doing, I think, a disservice to our students,” she said.
The PED reported that 252 of the 830 schools in the state received approved accreditation status during the 2025-2026 pilot accreditation year, while 578 were approved with conditions. None failed to receive approval. At the same time, 17 schools improved their NM Vistas ratings and 67 were given designations requiring further support.
Vásquez’s report also noted that certain risk factors, such as economic disadvantages and chronic absenteeism, were associated with lower performance, but do not necessarily define student potential. “Risk is not destiny,” she said, and added that even high performing schools still have students that experience risk factors.
Rep. Brian Baca (R-Los Lunas) said he would like to see more emphasis on attendance interventions in earlier grades because patterns of chronic absenteeism are already established by the time students reach high school.
“We already have years of disengagement, so what I want to focus on is our elementary,” Baca said during the meeting. “I think that’s where we have an opportunity—early identification, early intervention and supports through our MLSS System (Multi-Layered System of Supports) is where we can make a lot of these changes.”
County appoints Project Jupiter citizen monitor committee - Algernon d’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
A new citizen monitoring committee focused on the Project Jupiter data center cleared a major step Tuesday with a new resolution founding the body and the appointment of inaugural members by Doña Ana County commissioners.
The 11-member body is intended to meet for fact-finding and study regarding the technical aspects and environmental consequences of the 1,400-acre data center under construction in Santa Teresa for Oracle Corp. and OpenAI, and to make reports to the county commissioners.
Commissioners passed a new resolution creating the committee, superseding anearlier resolution from August, after a 90-minute discussion of resolution language and its relationship to the county, which has supported the project through industrial revenue bonds and tax incentives.
The discussion also featured an argument between one of the commissioners and the citizen who originally proposed the committee as they debated whether a county-paid attorney was necessary to keep meetings on track.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
