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Meta raises specter of shutting down service to New Mexico in legal clash over child safety

Meta is raising the prospect of shutting down its social media services in New Mexico in response to a push by state prosecutors for fundamental changes to the company’s platforms, including Instagram, to protect the mental health and safety of children.

The possibility emerged amid legal gamesmanship in the runup to a bench trial next week on allegations that Meta poses a public nuisance. It’s the second phase of a case that already resulted in $375 million in civil penalties on a jury’s determination that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Prosecutors are asking the court to order a series of changes to child accounts on social media aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.

Meta executives have emphasized that the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive social media use. The company says its being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use.

In a court filing unsealed Thursday, Meta said it was unfeasible for the company to meet a proposed requirement for 99% accuracy in verifying that child users are at least 13 years old, among other demands.

“As a practical matter, this requirement effectively requires Meta to shut down its services — for all users in the state — or else comply with impossible obligations,” Meta said in the filing.

Such a shutdown across a population of 2.1 million residents in New Mexico could silence personal communication on Meta’s immensely popular platforms, which also include Facebook and WhatsApp, and also impact their use for commercial advertising.

By withdrawing from New Mexico, Meta would satisfy any concerns about harm to children, but the message could appear intentionally hostile and might lead to unintended consequences, said Eric Goldman, codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California.

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Meta Inks Deal For Solar Power At Night, Beamed From Space

The race to secure electricity for AI models has reached new heights: Meta has signed an agreement with the startup Overview Energy that could see a thousand satellites beam infrared light to solar farms that power data centers at night.

In 2024, Meta’s data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity — roughly enough to power more than 1.7 million American homes for a year — and its need for compute power is only increasing. The company has committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources, with a focus on industrial-scale solar power plants.

Typically, data centers turning to solar power must either invest in battery storage or rely on other generation sources to operate at night.

Overview Energy, a four-year-old, Ashburn, Virginia, outfit that emerged from stealth in December, has a different solution: The company is developing spacecraft that collect plentiful solar power in space. It then plans to convert that energy to near-infrared light and beam it at sufficiently large solar farms — on the order of hundreds of megawatts — which can convert that light to electricity.

By using a wide, infrared beam to power existing terrestrial solar infrastructure, Overview thinks it can sidestep the technological challenges and safety and regulatory issues that bedevil plans to transmit power to Earth through high-power lasers or microwave beams. CEO Marc Berte says you’ll be able to stare right into his satellite’s beam with no ill effects.

The technology would increase the return on investment from building solar farms and reduce reliance on fossil fuels — if it can be deployed at scale.

Overview says it has already demonstrated power transmission to the ground from an aircraft, and is planning to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 to perform its first power transmission from space.

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China Blocks Meta’s $2 Billion Acquisition of AI Startup Manus

The Chinese government has officially blocked Meta’s planned $2 billion acquisition of Manus, a Chinese-founded AI startup, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing technological rivalry between the United States and China.

CNBC reports that China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) foreign investment review arm issued a decision on Monday to block the sale of Manus to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. The regulatory body ordered all parties involved in the transaction to unwind the acquisition, effectively terminating the deal that was announced in late December.

Manus emerged as a prominent player in the AI sector when it launched in March of last year with an AI agent designed to autonomously perform complex tasks. These capabilities include writing research reports, preparing presentation slides, and building websites. The launch garnered significant attention from Chinese state media, which celebrated it as the country’s latest breakthrough AI product. This recognition came on the heels of Deepseek’s AI model launch, which had previously caused substantial fluctuations in major United States technology stocks.

Early versions of Manus were developed by Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, a Chinese startup founded in 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal. Following its launch, the AI company made a strategic decision to relocate its headquarters and top engineers from Beijing to Singapore. This move aligned with a broader trend among Chinese AI firms seeking to navigate the complex geopolitical landscape between the United States and China. By establishing operations in Singapore, these companies believe they can circumvent some of the tensions between the two superpowers while gaining access to Western AI models and potential investors.

According to the Financial Times, the NDRC had initially approved Manus’ relocation to Singapore. However, complications arose when Meta and the startup failed to inform Chinese authorities before finalizing their acquisition agreement in December. This appears to have triggered the subsequent regulatory scrutiny and ultimate rejection of the deal.

The Chinese government’s response to the Meta-Manus transaction was swift and decisive. In January, mere days after the two companies publicly announced the acquisition, Chinese officials launched an investigation into potential national security concerns and possible export control violations. The probe intensified last month when the NDRC reportedly summoned the startup’s co-founders, Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao, to meet with its officials to discuss the acquisition details. Both co-founders were subsequently instructed not to leave China until the regulatory review concluded.

In a statement to Breitbart News, a Meta spokesperson wrote: “The transaction complied fully with applicable law. We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry.”

This regulatory intervention occurs against a backdrop of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over advanced AI technologies. The timing is particularly notable as it comes just weeks before President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing for a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The upcoming meeting takes place amid an ongoing trade war and escalating geopolitical tensions between the world’s two largest economies, with artificial intelligence emerging as a central battleground.

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Jury in Los Angeles finds Meta, YouTube negligent in social media addiction trial

A jury in Los Angeles determined on Wednesday that Meta and Google’s YouTube were negligent and failed to warn users of the dangers associated with using their platforms, in a case that could have repercussions across the social media and the broader technology market.

The personal injury trial commenced in late January in Los Angeles Superior Court. A young woman identified as K.G.M., or Kaley, alleged that she became addicted to apps like Instagram and YouTube as a child. Deliberations began Friday, March 13.

Jurors ultimately ruled in favor of the plaintiff, who claimed that Meta and YouTube’s negligence played a “substantial factor” in causing mental health-related harms. Compensatory damages were assessed at $3 million, with Meta on the hook for 70% and YouTube the remaining 30%. The next phase of the trial will determine punitive damages.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

It’s one of several trials taking place this year that experts have characterized as the social media industry’s “Big Tobacco” moment, comparing it the 1990s, when tobacco companies were forced to pay billions of dollars for lying to the public about the safety and potential harms of their products.

On Tuesday, jurors in Santa Fe, New Mexico found that Meta willfully violated the state’s unfair practices after Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleged that the company failed to properly safeguard its apps from online predators targeting children. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in damages based on the number of violations. The company said that it would appeal the case.

The New Mexico case is separate from other social media lawsuits that state attorneys general have brought against companies including Meta and TikTok.

During the six-week trial in L.A., jury members were tasked with determining whether Meta and YouTube implemented certain design features in their apps like recommendation algorithms and auto-play that contributed to K.G.M.’s crippling, mental distress. The 20-year-old woman alleged that she suffered from severe body dysmorphia, depression and suicidal thoughts due to her near-constant use of the apps and the constant notifications that made it difficult for her to stop.

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Meta ordered to pay $375 MILLION for not protecting minors from predators online

A jury has found that Meta failed to protect children from sexual predators as well as misled users, and the tech giant has been ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties.

A New Mexico jury found in the landmark case that Meta misled users about the platform’s safety and did not protect children being exploited, thereby violating the state’s laws. The jury made the decision after there were testimonies from witnesses over the course of six weeks. Witnesses included ex-executives from Meta, teachers, as well as online safety experts, per the New York Post.

The prosecutors in the state argued that Meta had hidden the extent to which the platform endangered children with the threat of sexual predators using the social media platform to target minors. Facebook and Instagram failed to enforce their policies of those under 13 not having profiles and algorithms allegedly made it easier to target minors for sex trafficking and harassment.

“The safety issues that you’ve heard about in this case, weren’t mistakes,” New Mexico attorney Linda Singer said on Monday. “They were a product of a corporate philosophy that chose growth and engagement over children’s safety. And young people in this state and around the country have borne the cost.”

Meta has vowed to appeal to the ruling in the case. “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,” a spokesman said in a statement in response to the verdict.

The attorneys for New Mexico had been seeking $2 billion in penalties against Meta, significantly more than what was given as a penalty to Meta. The case was brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. In closing arguments, Meta attorney Kevin Huff said of the case, “Meta has built innovative, automated tools to protect people. Meta has 40,000 people working to make its apps as safe as possible.”

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Meta is Ending Instagram Direct Message End-to-End Encryption

Meta is quietly dismantling one of its few genuine privacy commitments. Starting May 8, end-to-end encryption for Instagram direct messages disappears, taking with it the one technical guarantee that kept those conversations private from Meta itself.

“If you have chats that are impacted by this change, you will see instructions on how you can download any media or messages you may want to keep,” the company said in a help document, framing the loss of message privacy as a data export problem. Collect your things, the walls are coming down.

The feature being removed was never universal anyway. End-to-end encryption for Instagram DMs had been available only in certain regions, not enabled by default, since Meta began testing it in 2021 as part of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called his “privacy-focused vision for social networking.”

That vision apparently has an expiration date. Meta also made encrypted DMs available to all adult users in Ukraine and Russia in February 2022, weeks after the Russian invasion began. That access, too, is ending.

The timing is revealing. TikTok told the BBC last week that it has no plans to bring end-to-end encryption to its DMs, arguing that privacy makes users less safe. Meta is now arriving at the same destination from a different direction.

The stakes are straightforward. End-to-end encryption means only the people in a conversation can read it, a technical lock that excludes the platform, third parties, and anyone who might later obtain a warrant.

When that lock disappears, Meta and its employees can read Instagram DMs, law enforcement can subpoena them, and advertisers may eventually benefit from what gets learned.

Instagram users who relied on encrypted DMs have until May 8 to decide what to archive. After that, their private conversations are Meta’s to read.

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