New Mexico Judge Fines Meta $25 Billion Over Deceptive Data Privacy Practices

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (OPA) — Judge Francis Mathew issued the order Wednesday following a two-week trial that concluded the company intentionally deceived users regarding data handling between 2010 and 2021. The court determined that Meta’s senior executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, engaged in communications specifically designed to mislead the public about how third parties accessed personal information. While the total calculated penalty reached $219 billion based on more than 40 million individual violations of state law, the judge reduced the final fine to $25 billion.

Attorney General Raúl Torrez hailed the decision as a victory for corporate accountability, stating that the ruling proves no technology firm is beyond the reach of the law. The fine is roughly equivalent to Meta’s quarterly profits. During the proceedings, state lawyers argued that the company’s dishonesty impacted nearly two million New Mexico residents. The jury also found that Meta intentionally misled the public regarding its enforcement of policies against hate speech on its platforms.

Meta’s legal team has vowed to appeal the decision, characterizing the fine as an unconstitutional attempt to regulate online speech. CJ Mahoney, Meta’s head lawyer, stated that the ruling makes it effectively impossible for the company to conduct business within the state. The litigation originated from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which exposed how political consulting firms harvested data from millions of Facebook users without consent, including during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

This penalty adds to a growing list of legal challenges for the company, which recently settled a separate case with California regarding child safety features. Meta previously paid a $5 billion fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over similar privacy concerns. The company maintains that the current fine is excessive, arguing that any amount exceeding $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional. The case remains a significant escalation in the ongoing legal friction between Meta and state regulators.