Raúl Torrez is a prosecutor born and raised in Albuquerque. He left to study government at Harvard and earned degrees at the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School. Like his father, Presiliano, he is a career prosecutor.
However, he specializes in child abuse cases. He started his career with his father’s advice to focus on thinking about the impact on the child rather than seeing it as an ordinary case. Therefore, Torrez takes his cases quite seriously, with the thought of children lingering in his mind.
This resolve has enabled him to battle one of the biggest companies in the world, Meta. With CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Torrez made a considerable move a year into his new role as New Mexico’s attorney general.
He filed a lawsuit in December 2023, accusing Meta of creating a “breeding ground” for child predators and exposing young users to sexually explicit material. Per the complaint, it alleges that Meta employees have raised several alarms for years concerning the risk of sexual abuse of underaged children on its platforms.
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However, the company has not adequately addressed the issue. Torrez also spoke to CNN in an interview in February on the eve of a Senate subcommittee hearing with Zuckerberg and other social media leaders about potential harms from their platforms to young users.
“As a prosecutor and father, I am very concerned about how our digital economy and social media platforms have been allowed to evolve in ways that are just so dangerous to kids,” the prosecutor said.
Therefore, his lawsuit seeks an order to block Meta from “engaging in unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive practices.” Meta has pushed back on these claims. It says it has more than 30 safety and wellbeing tools for teens and parents.
However, the prosecutor and general users do not believe these tools are practical. Recently, Meta and other major social media platforms have faced growing scrutiny over the safety and protection of its younger users.
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People around the country have raised concerns about various aspects that may affect children adversely. These include the impact of social media on underage children’s mental health, body image, and overall wellbeing.
Of the many lawsuits that people have filed against Meta, Torres’s case focuses pointedly on the alleged child sexual exploitation. His suit seeks an order to block Meta from “engaging in unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive practices.” However, if Torrez wins, it could indicate that other big tech companies could lose similar cases against them.
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It could also be a driving force to workaround the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This legislation protects social media platforms from being held liable for content that users post.
However, parents, lawmakers, and other adults also root for the prosecutor. Over the years, several cases of child abuse online have come to light, and the disturbing trend continues.
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