A judge in New Mexico on Wednesday imposed a $25 billion fine against Meta following a two-week trial conducted earlier in the year. The court determined that the company had engaged in a pattern of deceptive practices regarding how it managed Facebook user data over more than a decade, from 2010 to 2021.
The lawsuit originated from Meta’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which user data was improperly utilized by a political consulting firm without proper authorization. New Mexico prosecutors alleged that Meta made false public statements claiming user data was never shared with or accessed by third parties without explicit user permission, when the company had actually done so repeatedly. Additionally, the state accused Meta of misleading the public about how it benefited from content containing hate speech and how such violations were enforced. A jury found Meta had violated state laws more than 40 million times and determined that roughly two million state residents were affected by these practices.
The judge determined that communications among senior executives, including company founder Mark Zuckerberg, were deliberately designed to deceive the public. While the full calculated penalty based on violations totaled $219 billion, the judge reduced the fine to $25 billion, an amount roughly equivalent to Meta’s quarterly profits. Meta had argued that penalties exceeding $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional, while prosecutors had sought as much as $40 billion. The company stated it intends to appeal the decision.
This represents Meta’s largest financial penalty to date and follows other significant fines and settlements this year, including an $18 billion agreement with California over child safety issues. A separate lawsuit resulted in an almost $1 billion fine for misleading claims about platform safety for minors. Despite these legal costs, Meta continues substantial spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, with the company reporting it will spend between $135 billion and $145 billion this year on such projects.
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