Judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion to New Mexico over user data

A judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to pay $25 billion. The order came on Wednesday. It follows a jury finding that Meta misled consumers about who could get at their personal data. By state law, all of the money goes to New Mexico's school system.

What the judge decided

Judge Francis Mathew wrote that Facebook's wrongdoing, over the course of years, "goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices." He found that state law justified a penalty of more than $219 billion. He then lowered it to $25 billion.

New Mexico's lawyer had asked for $35 billion to $40 billion. Meta had asked the court to cap the penalty at $3.45 billion.

What the case is about

New Mexico's attorney general, Raúl Torrez, sued Meta in 2021. The suit followed news that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, had collected personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app. The firm was involved in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The state said Meta lied to New Mexico users about who had access to their data and how it handles hate speech and misinformation. It also said Meta knew outside parties had broad access to user data and tolerated harmful content when that helped its bottom line.

Jurors found that 26 of 29 statements by the company and its leaders were misleading. They counted more than 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection laws. State law allows up to $5,000 per violation.

What Meta says

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the order. In court filings, it argued that a bigger penalty risked scaring businesses out of the state. It also said the evidence showed it does not sell user data. And it said New Mexico did not prove that any consumer had actually been misled.

Not the first bill

This was the second verdict against Meta from a Santa Fe jury in six months. In the first trial, which ended in March, jurors found Meta misled users about the safety of young people on its platforms. It was ordered to pay $375 million. A judge later directed another $567 million into a New Mexico fund for teen mental health.

Other costs are piling up too. In August, Meta agreed to pay $17 billion to settle a lawsuit by dozens of state attorneys general over products they said were designed to be addictive and harmed children. A $9.9 billion settlement payment pushed its quarterly profit well below analyst expectations. Revenue still rose 26% to $64.6 billion.

What to take from it

Courts are putting a high price on what tech companies say about your data. For everyday users, that is a reminder to read privacy promises with some healthy doubt and to check which apps can see your information. Whether Meta will appeal is not stated in the material.