Meta ordered to pay $25 billion in New Mexico privacy case
A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found that the company repeatedly misled Facebook users about data privacy and content moderation.
State District Judge Francis Mathew issued the order Wednesday, following a September verdict that identified more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer-protection law. Jurors found that 26 of 29 statements by Meta and its leadership were misleading. Mathew calculated that state law could support a penalty exceeding $219 billion but reduced the award to $25 billion.
The lawsuit, filed by New Mexico in 2021, arose partly from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The now-defunct political consulting firm obtained data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent and used it for targeted political advertising, including work connected to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. …