A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the Facebook parent company misled consumers, adding another enormous legal penalty to the social media giant's mounting bills. The case arose from allegations connected to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their consent. Cambridge Analytica gained access to personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app, according to .
The firm used the information to profile and target voters. A New Mexico jury in September found that 26 of 29 statements made by Meta and its leadership were misleading and that the company committed more than 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection laws. Judge Francis Mathew found that state law warranted a penalty of more than $219 billion but reduced it to $25 billion.
Meta has said it plans to appeal. Mahoney, the company's chief legal officer, said Meta was confident it would prevail and criticized New Mexico's approach to the case. The judgment dwarfs several of Meta's previous settlements and regulatory penalties over privacy, user safety and the handling of personal data.
The $25 billion judgment is the largest penalty levied against Meta in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, says. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez described it as one of the largest, if not the largest, single-state verdicts against a company in U.S. history. New Mexico sued Meta in 2021.
The state accused the company of misleading Facebook users about who had access to their data, how it handled hate speech and misinformation posted on its platform, and other internal policies. The jury ultimately found more than 43 million violations based on the number of Facebook users or New Mexico residents who were the audience for each misleading statement. State law allows penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, reports.
New Mexico had sought between $35 billion and $40 billion following the verdict, while Meta urged the court to limit the penalty to $3.45 billion. Meta has argued that a multibillion-dollar penalty risks violating its constitutional protections against excessive fines and its right to due process. The latest judgment comes less than two months after Meta reached another massive agreement with states over separate allegations involving young social media users.
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