Judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion in New Mexico penalties over data and misinformation claims
Meta says the ruling makes doing business in New Mexico nearly impossible and plans to appeal, and the penalty dwarfs its recent kids online safety settlement.
A New Mexico judge has fined Meta $25 billion over violations of the state's unfair practices law, tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The penalty is the largest Meta has faced this year, and it came from a jury finding in September that the company misled users about how it handled their data and curbed misinformation and hate speech. The judge applied the maximum $5,000 per violation, which would have produced over $219 billion, then cut the total to $25 billion. Meta's chief legal officer said the ruling makes doing business in New Mexico nearly impossible and that the company expects to win on appeal. The state attorney general's office calls it one of the largest corporate financial penalties in US history, and it dwarfs Meta's recent settlement of kids online safety claims for $17.1 billion, of which $5.3 billion depends on YouTube and TikTok adopting similar measures.
Why it matters
The case shows a state using consumer protection law to penalise a platform for how it described its handling of user data and misinformation, rather than for a specific breach. Because the judge cut a potential $219 billion total down to $25 billion, the final figure rests heavily on how the court weighed the violations, and that will be tested on appeal. For users in New Mexico and for other platforms watching how states pursue such claims, the outcome will show whether misleading statements about data and content moderation can carry penalties of this scale.
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Sources
- The Verge