A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion following a lawsuit regarding the company's handling of user privacy and content moderation. Judge Francis Matthew issued the ruling after a jury found the company committed 43.9 million violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act.
The legal proceedings, initiated in 2021, focused on 26 public statements made by Meta between May 2010 and August 2021 that were deemed misleading. The court noted that Meta provided third-party developers with unauthorized access to user data and maintained secret exceptions for commercial partners despite public promises to restrict such access.
While the court initially calculated a potential penalty of $219.5 billion based on a fine of $5,000 per violation, the final amount was reduced to $25 billion. Unpaid balances will accrue interest at a rate of 15% per annum. Meta has announced its intention to appeal the decision, stating that the ruling challenges its ability to operate in the state.
The case originated from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users was accessed without consent. Meta previously settled privacy-related claims with the US Federal Trade Commission for $5 billion in 2019 and was fined $14 million by an Australian court in 2023 regarding data collection practices.
