Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been ordered to pay $25 billion (£18.6 billion) in its largest-ever fine over its business practices, following a ruling by a judge in New Mexico, United States.
The ruling came after a two-week trial earlier this year in which a jury found that Meta had repeatedly misled the public about how it handled Facebook users’ personal data. The judge said the company’s misleading statements went beyond data privacy and reached the heart of its core business practices.
Meta’s chief lawyer, CJ Mahoney, criticised the decision, arguing that it would make doing business in New Mexico almost impossible. The company plans to appeal the ruling and maintains that the case threatens how online speech is regulated.
The lawsuit originated from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm obtained data from millions of Facebook users. The information was used for political consulting, including work connected to the 2016 US presidential election, which Donald Trump won.
New Mexico prosecutors also accused Meta of misleading the public about how it benefited from content containing hate speech and how its rules against such content were enforced. The jury found that the company had intentionally misled the public on these issues as well.
According to the state’s lawyers, Meta made repeated statements over the years claiming that users’ personal information was not shared with or accessed by third parties without permission. However, the lawsuit argued that the company’s actual data practices contradicted those assurances.
The state, which has a population of approximately two million people, argued that residents were affected by Meta’s handling of user data. A jury found the company had violated state law more than 40 million times.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the verdict demonstrated that powerful technology companies could be held accountable regardless of their size or influence. State lawyers had sought penalties of up to $40 billion, while Meta argued that fines exceeding $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional.
Judge Francis Mathew said the violations were deliberate and continued for more than 11 years, from 2010 to 2021. In his written order, he said communications among senior executives, including chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, were designed to mislead the public.
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Although the calculated penalties based on the violations amounted to $219 billion, the judge reduced the final fine to $25 billion. The ruling follows a $5 billion penalty imposed on Meta by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over its data privacy practices.
