In a windowless room in Albuquerque, a small team of New Mexico investigators created a fake Facebook account for a 13-year-old girl to target a child predator. They made posts of her losing her last baby tooth and starting her first day of 7th grade. To their surprise, Facebook funnelled adults to the account by the thousands – men who began trying to groom, solicit, and sexually harass a person they believed was an underage girl.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says this was the moment when he realized “there is a very, very serious problem inside of this company and on these platforms.” He launched a lawsuit against Meta, which led to the first successful verdict for child safety against a social media company. Question Everything executive producer Robyn Semien visited New Mexico to attend parts of the trial and hear from AG Torrez and his team how they took on Mark Zuckerberg, and what this victory, along with a second decision still to come, could mean for the future of social media.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questioneverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

Guests:

• New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez

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