Meta has been ordered to pay $25bn to the US state of New Mexico after a jury found that Facebook deceived users about its privacy and content moderation policies. Judge Francis Mathew handed down the penalty, which state Attorney General Raúl Torrez described as one of the largest, if not the single largest, state verdicts against a company in American history.
The case centred on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a third-party personality quiz harvested data from roughly 87 million Facebook profiles and sold it to the political consulting firm, which worked for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws, concluding that the company's public statements misled the state's entire population, not only people who used the platform.
Torrez said the judgment should serve as an unambiguous message to Silicon Valley. «This judgement should be a signal, an unambiguous message, to Silicon Valley,» he told a news conference, adding that New Mexico would continue to hold technology companies accountable. Under the state constitution, fines for consumer protection violations are directed to education spending. Torrez said the sum could fund school construction for generations, though he acknowledged the money would be tied up if Meta appeals, as expected.
New Mexico pursued the case alone after 48 other states signed an $18bn nationwide settlement with Facebook in August, which included an agreement to release the company from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica breach. Florida was the only other state not to join that settlement. State prosecutors had sought $35bn to $40bn, arguing that only a penalty large enough to affect the share price would change the company's behaviour. Meta's lawyers argued for no more than $3.4bn, saying a higher award would violate due process and be «shocking to the conscience».
The defence also argued that the state had failed to prove that any New Mexican heard or saw the misleading statements, or was harmed by them. Meta has said it plans to appeal the September verdict, and its lawyers have signalled that the number of violations, and therefore the total penalty, could be reduced on appeal. Interest on the award will accrue during any appeal. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the amount, and its shares were trading about 2 per cent higher following the announcement.
The ruling lands as a warning for businesses well beyond the technology sector. The case turned on the gap between what a company promised about data handling and what it actually did, a gap that regulators and courts are increasingly willing to price. For British firms handling consumer data, the judgment reinforces the reputational and financial risks of misleading privacy statements, even where domestic penalties are set under a different legal framework.