New Mexico orders Meta to pay $25bn over Facebook privacy case

• The $25bn civil penalty follows a September jury verdict over Facebook’s privacy and content-moderation statements.¹
• Jurors found about 43.9 million violations; state law allows penalties of up to $5,000 for each willful violation.²
• New Mexico sought $35bn-$40bn, while Meta argued for a much lower ceiling.³
• Meta had said it planned to appeal the verdict, but by Wednesday evening it was unclear whether it had appealed the penalty or secured a stay.¹

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay the state $25bn in civil penalties after a jury found the company liable for misleading Facebook users about privacy and content moderation.¹³

The September jury verdict found about 43.9 million violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act. Jurors found 26 of 29 statements misleading, covering issues including users’ control of their data, Facebook’s handling of hate speech and misinformation, and the company’s response to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.³²

New Mexico sued in 2021 after revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy, had obtained Facebook users’ data through a third-party app. The state’s case also challenged Meta’s statements about its content policies and its investigation of apps that had accessed user information.³²

The penalty is below the $35bn-$40bn New Mexico sought and well above the $3.45bn cap Meta urged. The company argued that the state had not proved consumers were actually misled and that a larger penalty could deter businesses from operating in New Mexico.³

The money is payable to the state and is to go to its education system, rather than directly to Facebook users. Meta had previously said it planned to appeal the September verdict; by Wednesday evening, it was unclear whether it had filed an appeal against the penalty or obtained a stay. An appeal could reduce the number of violations, while interest on the penalty would accrue during the process.¹³

Footnotes

1. https://apnews.com/article/facebook-penalty-cambridge-analytica-new-mexico-b329f82c3d3db3758a159405acbd4d0e ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. https://nmag.gov/press-release/jury-finds-facebook-violated-new-mexico-consumer-protection-law-faces-billions-in-potential-civil-penalties/ ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/meta-ordered-to-pay-25-billion-to-new-mexico-after-jury-finds-company-misled-consumers-about-data-privacy-4963776 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶