Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been ordered to pay a record $25bn (£18.6bn) fine following a court ruling in New Mexico. The penalty follows a two-week trial that concluded the company spent over a decade deceiving the public regarding its handling of user data.
Judge Francis Mathew, who presided over the case, determined that Meta’s misrepresentations were "willful" and spanned an 11-year period from 2010 to 2021. The court found that communications involving senior executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were "designed to mislead the public." While the total penalty calculated based on over 40 million violations of state law reached $219bn, the judge reduced the final fine to $25bn, an amount roughly equivalent to the company's quarterly profits.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez welcomed the decision, stating, "For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law. Today's result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable."
The litigation originated from Meta's involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the unauthorized use of data from millions of users for political consulting during the 2016 US Presidential election. Additionally, the jury found that the company intentionally misled the public regarding its enforcement of policies against hate speech.
CJ Mahoney, Meta's head lawyer, criticized the ruling, claiming it makes it "all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico." He further argued that the lawsuit acts as a "tax on speech" and confirmed that the company intends to appeal the decision. Meta had previously argued that any fine exceeding $3.4bn would be unconstitutional.
This ruling marks the latest in a series of legal challenges for the tech giant. Earlier this year, Meta reached an $18bn settlement with California regarding child safety concerns and faced a separate $1bn fine in New Mexico for allegedly misleading the public about the safety of its platforms for minors. Despite these mounting legal costs, Meta continues to invest heavily in artificial intelligence, with projected spending on AI projects reaching up to $145bn this year.
