Meta Faces $25bn New Mexico Penalty Over User Data Claims
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25bn after a jury found the company misled Facebook users about privacy and content moderation. The ruling stems from a…
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25bn after a jury found the company misled Facebook users about their data and content moderation. The ruling, issued on Wednesday, follows a case tied to Cambridge Analytica and its access to user information.
The penalty could send the money to New Mexico’s education system, according to Attorney General Raúl Torrez. Meta says it expects to win on appeal, so the amount may not be the final payment.
Why Meta was ordered to pay $25bn
Judge Francis Mathew reduced a penalty he said could exceed $219bn under state law to $25bn. The jury had found that Meta and its leadership made misleading statements about privacy and content moderation.
Jurors concluded that 26 of 29 statements were misleading and found more than 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws. The state’s law allows penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, with the proceeds directed to the school system, Torrez told reporters.
The lawsuit, filed by New Mexico in 2021, alleged that Meta misled users about who could access their personal information and how the company handled hate speech and misinformation. Meta disputed the claims in court filings, saying it did not sell user data and the state had not shown that a consumer was actually misled.
The case followed revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, had obtained data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent. The firm used the information to build user profiles, and its clients included Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Meta plans to appeal
Meta’s chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, said the company was confident it would win on appeal. The company argued that a large penalty could make it difficult to do business in New Mexico.
“This ruling, and the Attorney General’s approach to this enforcement, makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico,” Mahoney said.
For New Mexico, the ruling could direct a substantial payment to public education, but an appeal could alter the final amount. At a hearing, the state had asked for between $35bn and $40bn, while Meta urged the judge to cap penalties at $3.45bn.
This is the second legal defeat for Meta in New Mexico in six months. A Santa Fe jury in March found the company misled users about young people’s safety on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and ordered $375m in civil penalties. A judge later directed Meta to pay $567m into a state fund for teen mental health and to implement protections for teen Facebook and Instagram users in New Mexico.
Judge Mathew wrote that Facebook’s conduct went “to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices.”
Source: theguardian.com
