Jury finds social media company Meta ordered by New Mexico judge to pay state $25 billion Deceiving consumers for many years About its data privacy policy.
Judge Francis Mathieu announced the amount, which New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez called “one of, if not the largest, state verdict against a company in American history.”
“This judgment should be a signal, a clear message to Silicon Valley,” Torrez said at a news conference.
In September, jurors found that Facebook made false or misleading statements by telling consumers they controlled how information was shared. The jury concluded that the social media giant also misled consumers by claiming it did not sell or share personal information with advertisers.
The judge ruled that the jury found that the company’s “top leadership,” including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, made false statements about the service’s data privacy policy.
“These communications are part of a coherent strategy designed to mislead the public,” Matthew wrote.
The case stems from accusations that Facebook deceived users about a data breach caused by a third-party personality quiz that collected data from about 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm. Cambridge Analyticagenerate targeted advertising.
Torrez said in a statement on Wednesday that the case “always involved more than one company or one scandal.”
He added, “This is about whether companies can mislead consumers about the handling of their personal information without facing meaningful consequences.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The whereabouts of $25 billion
Under the New Mexico Constitution, fines for violating consumer protection laws go toward state education spending.
“We’ve probably paid for the next 100 years of school construction,” Torrez said, noting that the money will be tied up if Mehta appeals the decision, as is expected.
Forty-eight other states have settled with Facebook in cases nationwide, but New Mexico chose to take the social media company to court on its own.
Lawyers for New Mexico have sought $35 billion to $40 billion in damages, arguing that the company would change its ways only if the amount was large enough to affect its stock price.
Meta’s lawyers said the company should pay no more than $3.4 billion in damages, arguing that a much larger amount would violate due process, be unconstitutional and would not delay an appeal.
In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on Facebook, then known as Meta, and imposed a fine of US$5 billion Its role in allowing Cambridge Analytica to collect user data without their consent.
Mehta argued that New Mexico failed to prove that the tech giant’s executives made misleading statements about privacy and that its content moderation practices harmed state residents.
Meta shares rose $13.56, or 2%, to $707.81 in afternoon trading Wednesday.