COURTS
Testimony focuses on Facebook's screening of harmful content
Witness tells Santa Fe jury that human review can delay removal of hate speech
Testimony in New Mexico's trial against Facebook on Friday focused on Meta's use of lists that allegedly shield politicians and advocacy groups from scrutiny intended to remove misinformation and hate speech from the social media platform.
Samuel Woolley, a professor of communications at the University of Pittsburgh, told jurors Friday that a program intended to provide human review of Facebook content has the effect of delaying the removal of some harmful content.
"If you are an ordinary user and you post an incitement to violence, that's going to be taken down immediately by the automated system, ideally," Woolley testified. For users on the cross-check list, the content remains on the platform pending review, he said.
"Their content stays up the whole time the review is happening and it stays up for days," he said. "It could be the most violent, hateful content and it is going to stay up. That means there are days of additional exposure to the content."
Facebook's cross-check list has grown significantly in recent years to nearly 800,000 users in 2025 and includes powerful individuals, businesses and influencers, he said. The 2025 list included the names of political figures, including President Donald Trump's sons, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, he said.
Woolley told jurors that Facebook's fact-checking program also does a poor job screening content in Spanish, in photos and videos and posts that target small groups.
Woolley began his testimony late Thursday after jurors heard a video deposition of Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who also responded to questions about Facebook's cross-check list. Woolley testified all day Friday in 1st Judicial District Court in Santa Fe.
Testimony began Wednesday and is scheduled to continue through Oct. 2 before Judge Francis Mathew.
Zuckerberg testified that Facebook users on the cross-check list are subject to the same community standards required for all users of the platform. The list "also included people like human rights activists and journalists and people who might have enemies who are trying to flag their content or get it taken down," he said.
An attorney for Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Wednesday in opening statements that Meta uses computer programs and human review to block hate speech, violent and sexual content and other content that violates the company's standards.
Testimony this week has centered largely on Facebook's response to misinformation and hate speech rather than the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which prompted New Mexico's 2021 lawsuit filed by then-Attorney General Hector Balderas.
Cambridge Analytica is a now-defunct London-based political consulting firm that harvested data from an estimated 70 million U.S. Facebook users, including about 350,000 New Mexicans.
The London-based firm allegedly used the data to direct political advertising for presidential campaigns. Its clients included the 2016 presidential campaign of President Trump.
Olivier Uyttebrouck covers the courts and legal affairs. You can reach him at olivier@abqjournal.com.