A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties. This decision follows a jury ruling from September, which found that the company misled consumers regarding data protection, misinformation, and hate speech on its platforms.
The court identified over 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices law. The judge applied a penalty of $5,000 per violation, which initially totaled over $219 billion before being reduced to the current amount.
The ruling cites the persistent nature of the violations, their broad scope, and the involvement of senior leadership as justifications for the penalty. This sum represents one of the largest financial sanctions against a corporation in U.S. history.
This case originated from a 2021 complaint related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where user data was harvested for political messaging. Meta has not provided an immediate response to the court's decision.
