A federal judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion to New Mexico after a jury found the tech giant responsible for nearly 44 million violations of state consumer protection laws. It is the largest fine ever imposed on Meta. The penalty followed New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez's decision not to join an $18 billion settlement Meta reached earlier this year with attorneys general in nearly all states.
In his opinion, US district court judge Francis J. Mathew said there was no "bright line rule" for determining the appropriate penalty for Meta's repeated and willful deception of users since 2010 about control of data, third-party data misuse, misinformation, hate speech, and equal enforcement. Mathew found that trial evidence showed top leadership, including Mark Zuckerberg, knew the company, then known as Facebook, was making misleading public representations. He said the violations "were not the product of a single misleading statement or isolated incident," but arose from repeated representations over more than 11 years.
New Mexico had asked for fines of up to $40 billion, while Meta had argued that anything above the $3.4 billion it expected to pay would be unconstitutional. Mathew said the earlier $5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal could not be viewed in isolation, noting that prior penalties had not stopped Meta from using deceptive practices.
Torrez called the ruling "a historic day for New Mexico and for consumers across the country," saying no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable. Meta plans to appeal, and legal experts told Reuters the company has a decent chance of reducing the fine on constitutional grounds. Meta also said the ruling and the attorney general's enforcement approach make it "all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico."
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing