A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company repeatedly misled consumers about privacy and other core Facebook practices—a penalty so large that it instantly became the biggest fine ever imposed on the tech giant.
The judgment, issued Wednesday, October 21, does not mean New Mexico will receive the money immediately. Meta has promised to appeal, and the size of the award, the way violations were calculated and the constitutional arguments raised by the company could keep the case in court for years.
What the jury found
The case grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a broader challenge to Facebook’s public claims about user data, third-party access, misinformation and hate speech. New Mexico filed its lawsuit in 2021 after revelations that the now-defunct political consulting firm harvested personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook profiles through a third-party app.
In September, jurors found that Meta and its leadership made 26 misleading statements and committed 43,899,725 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The New Mexico Department of Justice said the statements covered how Facebook collected, protected, shared and used personal information, along with representations about harmful content and the company’s response to third-party apps.
State District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew concluded the conduct went to the center of Facebook’s business practices. According to The Associated Press, the judge said Facebook intentionally deceived users about the control they had over their data.
Why $25 billion—and why it could have been much higher
New Mexico law allows a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each willful violation. Applied to nearly 44 million violations, that formula could support an award above $219 billion. The state asked for between $35 billion and $40 billion, while Meta argued that any penalty should be capped at about $3.45 billion.
Mathew settled on $25 billion. Reuters reported that the judgment ranks among the largest financial penalties ever imposed on a corporation in the United States. It also dwarfs the $5 billion penalty the Federal Trade Commission imposed on Facebook in 2019 over privacy failures connected to Cambridge Analytica.
Under New Mexico’s constitution, money collected from consumer-protection fines goes toward education. But an appeal could delay any transfer for years, and an appellate court could reduce the number of violations or the final amount.
Meta says the state did not prove actual harm
Meta disputes both the verdict and the penalty. In court filings, the company argued that it does not sell user data and that New Mexico failed to prove any individual consumer was actually misled or harmed. Meta also contends that the state’s case reaches into protected speech and content-moderation decisions.
C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said the company is confident it will prevail on appeal. The company argues that the ruling makes it extraordinarily difficult to operate in New Mexico and improperly penalizes speech under the banner of consumer protection.
Jurors did not accept every claim made by the state. They rejected some allegations involving Facebook’s statements about removing harmful content, including COVID-19 misinformation. That partial win gives Meta another foundation for challenging the scope of the judgment.
Why the case matters beyond New Mexico
The case is a test of whether a state can turn mass-market statements by a digital platform into millions of separate consumer-protection violations. If the judgment survives, other attorneys general could view New Mexico’s strategy as a model for pursuing technology companies over public representations made to huge audiences.
For users, the ruling is also a reminder that familiar promises about privacy controls can carry legal consequences long after a scandal fades from the headlines. Cambridge Analytica shut down years ago, but the dispute over what Facebook told people—and what those assurances were worth—is still producing historic stakes.
The immediate headline is $25 billion. The lasting story will be whether that number survives appeal—and whether it changes how social platforms describe the bargain they make with users who hand over personal information.
Sources: New Mexico Department of Justice; Associated Press; Reuters.
