Nearly a decade after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, New Mexico alone is taking Facebook to trial

Attorneys representing the state of New Mexico told jurors that targeted political ads, attempting to lower Democratic turnout during the 2016 election, used Facebook data sold to a political consulting firm, during opening statements in a trial over the platform’s data protections. In court documents, the state argues Facebook failed to alert or protect users from a personality quiz on the social platform that harvested data from roughly 87 million Facebook profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica. The data was used to generate targeted ads during the 2016 presidential election. Randi McGinn, the attorney representing New Mexico, said Cambridge Analytica used Facebook profile data to geographically target Democratic voters with messaging such as “‘Hillary’s got it, you don’t need to vote’,” in an alleged attempt to reduce voter turnout. The now-defunct firm’s clients included the 2016 campaign for Donald Trump. Facebook’s attorney said the social media company investigated suspicious third-party apps following the breach and told jurors the state’s evidence is outdated because safeguards have improved. Facebook conducted independent investigations and tried to stop suspicious third parties from harvesting user data following revelations about how the data was used. The company also banned apps and referred suspicious developers to regulators. New Mexico is the only state that has pushed the case toward trial, expected to last four weeks, as part of its go-it-alone approach to prosecuting Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.