Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been ordered to pay a record US$25 billion fine in New Mexico after a judge found it had repeatedly misled the public about how it handled Facebook users’ data.
The ruling follows a two-week trial earlier this year, in which a jury found that Meta had violated state laws more than 40 million times through its handling of user data and representations to the public.
Judge Francis Mathew said the company’s violations were wilful and spanned more than 11 years, from 2010 to 2021.
He also found that communications between senior executives, including Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, were designed to mislead the public.
The case stems partly from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm used data from millions of Facebook users, including in work connected to the 2016 United States presidential election.
New Mexico also accused Meta of misleading the public about how it benefited from content containing hate speech and how it enforced its rules against such content. The jury found that the company had intentionally misled the public on those claims as well.
Meta has disputed the allegations, with its head lawyer, CJ Mahoney, saying the ruling would make it almost impossible for the company to operate in New Mexico. He said Meta intends to appeal and believes it will succeed.
Mahoney also argued that the lawsuit sought to impose restrictions on online speech.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the ruling demonstrated that powerful technology companies could be held accountable under the law, regardless of their size or influence.
State lawyers had sought up to $40 billion in penalties, while Meta argued that any amount exceeding $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional.
Although the total penalty calculated for the alleged violations reached $219 billion, Judge Mathew reduced the fine to $25 billion.
The ruling is the latest in a series of legal challenges facing Meta over its business practices. It follows a $5 billion fine imposed by the United States Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over the company’s data privacy practices.
Meta has also faced other lawsuits this year, including a reported $18 billion settlement with California over child safety.
Source: BBC News
