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A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading Facebook users about their personal information. The company plans to appeal the October 21 ruling.
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District Judge Francis Mathew set the penalty below the $35 billion to $40 billion sought by New Mexico. Meta had argued for a maximum of $3.45 billion, saying the state had not demonstrated consumer harm.
Interest alone would total $3.75 billion over a full year on an unpaid $25 billion balance. However, the planned appeal leaves the final amount and payment timing uncertain.
New Mexico filed the lawsuit in 2021 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The political consultancy obtained information from as many as 87 million Facebook profiles through a personality quiz and used it for political advertising during the 2016 US presidential election.
But the case covered more than third-party access to personal data. Jurors also examined statements about hate speech, misinformation and whether Facebook applied its community standards consistently.
On September 25, the jury found 43,899,725 violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act. State law permits penalties of up to $5,000 for each willful violation, creating potential exposure of nearly $220 billion.
The distinction matters for understanding the figure: the violation count does not represent 43.9 million separate people. It reflects findings about misleading statements and their reach among consumers.
No. The civil penalty goes to the state for public education, rather than compensating individual Facebook users.
No. A financial penalty does not itself alter account settings or stop data collection.
No. Meta disputes the outcome and plans to challenge it through an appeal.