Meta warns of withdrawal from New Mexico over court-ordered safety mandates

Meta has issued a stark warning that it may withdraw Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from New Mexico if the state court grants Attorney General Raúl Torrez's request for sweeping changes to the platforms. This threat follows a $375 million jury award against Meta for misleading users regarding product safety, a verdict that has intensified the regulatory pressure on the technology giant. The Attorney General is seeking mandates that would fundamentally alter how the services operate for minors, including prohibiting end-to-end encryption, implementing strict age verification, and detecting 99 per cent of new child sexual abuse material.

In a legal filing to the court, Meta argues that these requirements are vague and infeasible, stating that enforcing them could violate the company's due process rights. The company contends that complying with the orders would necessitate building New Mexico-specific applications or violating federal privacy laws. Specifically, Meta asserts that achieving a 99 per cent accuracy rate for CSAM detection is mathematically impossible because calculating the error rate requires detecting 100 per cent of such material to use as a denominator.

The social media platform further claims that replacing its current age estimation methods with ID uploads and facial scans would likely result in lower accuracy due to user circumvention and real-world condition discrepancies. Meta also states it believes federal children's privacy law would bar it from retaining the data necessary to classify users under 13 in New Mexico if forced to implement the requested verification systems. Consequently, the company argues that granting this onerous relief could compel it to entirely withdraw its apps from the state as the only feasible means of compliance.

Attorney General Torrez has rejected these technical arguments, stating that Meta's resistance demonstrates a refusal to prioritise child safety over engagement, advertising revenue, and profit. He cited the company's history of rewriting rules to preserve market access, noting that Meta has the ability to make these changes but chooses not to. Torrez indicated that dozens of attorneys general across the US are pursuing similar actions against social media companies, suggesting a broader trend of regulatory pressure that could see the company finding fewer places to operate.

In response, Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro noted that the state's focus on a single platform ignores the hundreds of other apps teens use and leaves parents without comprehensive support. The company proposes modest tweaks to age assurance models and funding for law enforcement training instead of the sweeping changes requested by the state. Torrez countered that targeting a single platform is a shortsighted attempt to deflect and delay the inevitable, arguing it would be better for the community if companies started doing the real work to prioritise safety.