A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25bn in penalties in a data privacy case arising from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, BBC reported. Judge Francis Mathew of the New Mexico District Court issued the order after a jury found Meta liable for misleading state residents about how it handled user data and how it managed hate speech and harmful content on its platforms.
The full penalty calculated under state law was $219.5bn, but Judge Mathew reduced it to $25bn. The judge also ordered that interest on the penalty would accrue at 15% per year until paid in full. Jurors found on 25 September that 26 of 29 statements made by Meta and its leadership were misleading, counting more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection laws by reference to the number of residents who saw each misleading statement.
The $25bn fine is the largest ever imposed on Meta and is roughly equal to the company's profits each quarter. Judge Mathew wrote in his order that the scale and nature of Meta's conduct, along with senior leadership's involvement, supported the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act. Internal communications among senior executives, Mark Zuckerberg among them, were designed to mislead the public, the order stated.
Meta disputed the accusations and argued through court filings that a penalty above $3.45bn risked deterring businesses from operating in the state. The company's chief legal officer characterised the lawsuit as an attempt to impose a tax on speech and set new rules about what people can say online. Meta intends to appeal the ruling.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said large technology companies had long acted as though they were beyond the law's reach, and the outcome showed no company was too large to face accountability. All penalty money goes to New Mexico's school system, Torrez told reporters after the verdict. The state sued Meta in 2021 and has separately fined the company close to $1bn over misleading public statements about child safety on its social media platforms.
Reporting: BBC, CNBC, The Guardian
Written by Pick & Scroll News from the reporting and documents linked above.
