A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion in civil penalties on Wednesday, weeks after a jury found the company violated state consumer protection laws by misleading Facebook users about its privacy protections and content moderation practices.
The judgment was signed by New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew after a jury determined that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.
Mathew concluded that statutory penalties could exceed $219 billion based on the jury’s findings but reduced the amount to $25 billion.
“Facebook’s wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices,” Mathew wrote in his ruling.
The case originated from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico in 2021 following revelations that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal information associated with approximately 87 million Facebook accounts without users’ consent. The information was collected through a third-party personality quiz application and subsequently used for political targeting. Cambridge Analytica worked with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
New Mexico accused Meta of misleading consumers about who could access their personal information, how Facebook protected user privacy and how the company addressed misinformation and harmful content. Jurors determined that 26 of 29 statements examined during the trial were misleading, resulting in more than 43 million violations of the state’s consumer protection laws.
State Attorney General Raúl Torrez described the judgment as one of the largest financial penalties imposed against a corporation in American history.
“This is a historic day for New Mexico and for consumers across the country,” Torrez said in a statement sent by e-mail.
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State prosecutors had requested penalties ranging from $35 billion to $40 billion, arguing that a substantial financial judgment was necessary to hold the company accountable. Meta had urged the court to limit the penalty to approximately $3.45 billion, arguing that a larger award would violate constitutional protections against excessive penalties and due process violations.
The company also maintained that the state failed to establish that individual consumers had suffered harm from the statements identified during the trial.
C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, criticized the ruling, saying it “makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico.” Mahoney argued that the lawsuit improperly targets online speech and said Meta expects to prevail on appeal, but did not say if Facebook, Instagram and other apps owned by Meta will stop working in the state.
The $25 billion judgment substantially exceeds the $5 billion penalty imposed on Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The ruling also follows a separate multi-state settlement reached in August involving claims against Meta over the safety of its social media platforms.
The financial penalty came hours before Meta Platforms was scheduled to disclose its third quarter (Q3) financial earnings.
