Meta ordered to pay $25 billion to New Mexico after jury finds company misled consumers about data privacy

SAN FRANCISCO: A New Mexico judge ruled Wednesday (Oct 21) that Meta must pay US$25 billion to the state after a jury found last month that the social media giant had deceived users in a case related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to media reports.

The penalty comes a couple of months after Meta agreed to pay US$18 billion to settle claims brought by 48 other states, including allegations tied to Cambridge Analytica.

Meta slammed the case as "a tax on speech."

"This ruling ... makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico," Meta said in a statement. "We are confident we will prevail on appeal."

Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, notably during the 2016 US presidential election.

Revelations at the time showed that the firm had obtained data gathered through a personality quiz app called "thisisyourdigitallife," which was installed by about 270,000 users but also collected information on their friends.

In total, the app reached roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.

Facebook learned in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had acquired the data but did not disclose it publicly until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward, sparking a major political scandal.

Jurors in the New Mexico trial found that the misconduct affected all of the state’s more than 2.1 million residents.

"We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement in September.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez hailed the ruling as a "historic" win.

This case was "about whether corporations can mislead consumers about what happens to their personal information without facing meaningful consequences. New Mexico stood its ground," Torrez said in a statement.