From California Post
Inside Meta’s threat to exit New Mexico over kids safety rules — and whether experts believe the ploy will work
By Thomas Barrabi
Mark Zuckerberg’s threat to shut down Instagram and Facebook in New Mexico over the state’s demands for kids safety protections is a tactic he has previously used to dodge regulations – but as the lawsuits pile up, experts say the act is wearing thin.
Meta’s warning came last month on the eve of a trial in which a state judge will rule whether to impose strict safety rules in New Mexico against the social media giant, which was slapped with $375 million in civil penalties for failing to protect underage users from sexual predators.
Once an effective tool for gaining leverage and grabbing headlines, the shutdown threats are quickly becoming impractical for Meta, according to James Grimmelmann, a professor at Cornell Law School.
“In the long run, the problem for Meta is that similar pressure will be coming from other states, both in lawsuits and from regulation,” Grimmelmann said. “At some point, it won’t just be a separate app for New Mexico, it’ll be an app to meet the (broadly similar) demands of 15 states...”
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who once helped Microsoft develop tools to detect child sex abuse material, said Meta’s threats to shut down “simply won’t scale across the US.”
“Meta and others tried this stunt when the EU started cracking down on abuses. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now,” Farid told The Post. “Even if Meta does go through with this threat, New Mexico is only the first state in what is almost certainly going to be a long line of similar state lawsuits...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley
