NM Dems propose greater child and consumer protections
Three New Mexico Democrats announced new legislation to protect children and consumers on Wednesday. Attorney General Raul Torrez crafted the legislation that State Representative Linda Serrato plans to sponsor in the upcoming legislative session next year. Candidate for governor Deb Haaland joined Torrez and Serrato at a press conference in Albuquerque on to voice her support for the legislation.
One bill looks to update the Unfair Practices Act while another introduces the Online Safety and Accountability Act.
Currently the penalty for violating the Unfair Practices Act is $5,000-- a number that hasn't changed since 1970. The legislation would increase the penalty to $50,000 and modernize the act to better regulate selling personal data and spam calls and texts.
The Online Safety and Accountability Act would would create safeguards for how minors interact with AI and social media.
Those measures include age verification, time limits and a ban on selling minors' data.
Public school literacy proficiency on the rise
Reading and literacy proficiency rates grew by 10 percent last year for New Mexico public school students. That's according to data that the state Public Education Department presented to lawmakers on Wednesday.
Literacy proficiency is now at 44 percent for New Mexico Public School students. The greatest gains were among kindergarten students. The report noted that early literacy can have the greatest impact on long-term student trajectories.
Meanwhile, math scores improved only one percentage point to 26 percent. Science scores remained stagnant at 34 percent.
Members of the bipartisan Legislative Education Study Committee said that in the push to improve math and literacy, science programs are often overlooked and underfunded. Chronic absenteeism is also a concern for committee members.
Meta trial wraps up
Closing arguments have taken place in another New Mexico trial against Facebook. This lawsuit alleged a failure to protect users from a third-party quiz that harvested data from 87 million profiles. The data was sold to Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Attorneys for the state said Facebook deceived users about privacy protections. They urged jurors to find the platform liable for thousands of violations of the state Unfair Practices Act. Lawyers for Facebook said the state failed to present evidence of any violations, and they argued the platform has improved privacy and safety protections. If jurors determine the law was violated, the state is seeking up to $5,000 per violation.
