A three-week public nuisance trial began Monday in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where attorneys for Meta and the state’s attorney general are arguing over sweeping changes a judge could order to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — changes that could reshape how the social media giant operates well beyond state lines.
The trial follows a landmark verdict earlier in 2026 in which New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez won $375 million from Meta in a child safety case. Torrez has said that sum alone is unlikely to change Meta’s behavior. “There’s probably some folks in that company who think of it as the cost of doing business,” he told The Verge.
In the current phase, New Mexico is asking Judge Bryan Biedscheid to order Meta to add age verification for New Mexico users, ban end-to-end encryption for users under 18, cap monthly usage at 90 hours for minors, limit engagement features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and detect 99 percent of new child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The state plans to call roughly 15 witnesses, including experts on the feasibility of those remedies.
Meta argues the proposed mandates are unworkable. The company contends, for example, that proving a 99 percent CSAM detection rate is mathematically impossible without first detecting 100 percent of such material. Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro called the state’s approach “misguided” and said it “infringes on parental rights and stifles free expression for all New Mexicans.”
Critics of Torrez’s approach also warn that banning encryption could push users to less-regulated platforms, while age verification requirements could increase data collection risks for both adults and minors.
Any order issued would technically apply only to Meta’s operations in New Mexico. However, the company could choose to apply changes nationally for consistency — or, as it has threatened, go dark in the state entirely.
The outcome could influence thousands of other pending cases against tech companies and affect settlement negotiations industry-wide. Torrez has also been lobbying in Washington, DC, for new federal kids’ safety legislation and an overhaul of Section 230, the law that limits platform liability for user-generated content.
Source: The Verge