Jury Finds Meta Misled New Mexico on Privacy

Santa Fe — A New Mexico jury on Friday, 25 September 2026, found that Meta Platforms misled the state’s residents about Facebook’s privacy practices and related public claims, in a case rooted in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Jurors counted more than 43 million violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The judge, not the jury, will decide how much Meta must pay.

Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm that, according to reporting and the state’s case, obtained personal data from tens of millions of Facebook profiles through a third-party personality-quiz app and used that data to target political ads, including work tied to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The firm is now defunct. New Mexico’s attorney general sued in 2021, arguing Facebook misled people about how their data was shared and about what the company did after the scandal became public.

What the jury decided

Local reporting from the courtroom put the violation count at 43,899,720. Under New Mexico law, each violation can carry a civil penalty of up to $5,000. That math puts a theoretical maximum near $219.5 billion if every violation drew the top fine — a ceiling the judge is not required to impose. Attorney General Raúl Torrez said his office would seek the maximum and that civil penalties of this kind go into a fund that supports New Mexico schools.

Fortune and Reuters reported that the two-week Santa Fe trial focused on deceptive statements about protecting user data and about investigations into third-party apps after Cambridge Analytica. Jurors sided with the state on the core privacy deception claims that affected New Mexico’s population. Reuters reported jurors found 26 of 29 statements the state flagged were misleading, and rejected some claims about Meta’s efforts to remove harmful content and its fact-checking practices. Meta’s lawyers argued the state’s evidence was outdated and that the company does not sell users’ information.

Meta’s response

“We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record,” Meta spokesperson Alex Burgos said in a statement quoted by Fortune. The company also argued it has a First Amendment (free-speech) right to manage its platforms and said it prioritizes free speech, user information and user control over data.

How this case survived a bigger settlement

Last month Meta reached a multistate settlement worth up to about $17 billion over child-safety claims. As part of that deal, Meta agreed to pay $459 million to a handful of states that had sued over Cambridge Analytica, and signing states released those privacy claims. New Mexico did not join that settlement and took its privacy case to trial alone. Separately, New Mexico earlier won $942 million from Meta over youth-safety claims: $375 million in penalties from a jury in March and $567 million ordered by a judge afterward on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — a different lawsuit from Friday’s privacy verdict.

What happens next

District Judge Francis Mathew will set civil penalties and can consider injunctions — court orders telling Meta to change practices — at a later hearing. Fortune reported a penalty hearing set for 1 October; other local coverage said Torrez expected a ruling within weeks. Meta can appeal. No penalty amount has been set yet. The verdict finds liability; it does not by itself put money in individuals’ pockets.