Meta Ordered to Pay New Mexico $25 Billion
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found Facebook misled users about who could get at their data and how it enforced its own rules. It is the largest penalty yet against the company over the Cambridge Analytica affair. Meta has said a penalty this size is unconstitutional and is expected to appeal.
The judgment is a fraction of what state law allowed, and it grows by 15% a year until Meta pays.
Judge Francis Mathew of the state district court in Santa Fe found that state law supported a penalty of about $219.5 billion, the maximum of $5,000 for each of nearly 44 million violations the jury counted, then cut it to $25 billion. The judge left for later the question of whether to order Meta to change how it does business.
In September the jury found that 26 public statements by the company and its leaders were misleading, about users' control of their data, outside developers' access to it after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and how Facebook enforced its rules. Each New Mexican in the expected audience for a statement counted as one violation.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez called it "a very clear warning" to the industry. Meta had asked the judge to cap the penalty at about $3.4 billion and has said a penalty this size would violate its constitutional rights. An appeal is expected.
Santa Fe, New Mexico — Meta Platforms has been ordered to pay New Mexico $25 billion, the largest penalty yet against the company over the Cambridge Analytica affair, after a jury found Facebook had misled users about their data.
Judge Francis Mathew of the First Judicial District Court wrote that "Facebook's wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices."
How the court reached $25 billion
The 20-page judgment first awards the state $219,498,600,000, the maximum of $5,000 for each of 43,899,720 violations under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act, then reduces it to $25 billion in the same sentence. It does not explain how the lower figure was chosen. It adds interest of 15% a year "until paid in full," which comes to $3.75 billion a year, and says the court "will reserve on injunctive relief pending further briefing," so no order to change Meta's practices has been made yet.
The state had asked for $35 billion to $40 billion. Meta asked for a cap of about $3.45 billion, arguing that a larger penalty risked violating its constitutional protections against excessive fines and that the evidence showed it does not sell user data.
What the jury found
New Mexico sued in 2021 after it emerged that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked for Trump's 2016 campaign, had obtained data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through an outside app without their consent. On September 25, jurors found 26 of 29 statements by the company and its leaders misleading, covering users' control of their data, Facebook's promised investigation of app developers after Cambridge Analytica, misinformation, hate speech and equal enforcement of its rules.
The jury counted each New Mexican in a statement's expected audience, either Facebook's 1,386,648 monthly users in the state or all of the state's residents, as one violation. Meta's lawyers argued the state never proved any New Mexican saw or was harmed by the statements, and legal experts expect the counting method to be tested on appeal.
Reactions
"It has been a long time coming holding Big Tech accountable," Torrez said at a news conference in Albuquerque, calling the judgment "a very clear warning to those in this space and beyond." He has said state law sends the money to New Mexico's schools; the judgment itself does not say where it goes.
Meta did not immediately comment. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said the ruling was costly but unlikely to affect the value of a company "worth nearly two trillion dollars" that will "likely continue to appeal." In 2019 Meta agreed to a $5 billion Federal Trade Commission penalty over the same scandal, and in March another Santa Fe jury ordered it to pay $375 million in a separate New Mexico case over young users' safety.