New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion over Facebook privacy case

The judgment was issued by state District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew. The case was brought under New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, according to Deadline, and resulted in civil penalties against Meta. The available reporting does not provide a detailed breakdown of how the $25 billion amount was calculated.

The case was connected to allegations that Cambridge Analytica obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their consent. Those allegations formed part of the wider privacy dispute surrounding Facebook and Meta, but the supplied accounts do not establish additional details about the scope of the jury’s findings.

EL PAÍS reported that the judge said Facebook had misled users about its privacy policies in up to 43 million instances. That figure remains attributed to the publication and is not presented here as an independently confirmed count.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez described the verdict as a warning to technology companies and said the state would hold them accountable, according to PBS NewsHour. Fortune reports that Meta plans to appeal the $25 billion judgment; the outcome of any appeal remains unresolved.