Meta Hit With USD25B Penalty Over 43M Data Violations
The order follows a September jury verdict in New Mexico, which found the social media giant liable for more than 43 million violations of the state’s consumer protection law.
The underlying scandal broke in 2018, when Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, improperly obtained personal information from roughly 87 million Facebook users.
District Court Judge Francis Mathew ruled that the violations were willful and systematic. He pointed to repeated misleading statements by Facebook and to the involvement of senior executives at the company.
Mathew cut an initial assessment of $219.5 billion to $25 billion. He also ordered that the penalty accrue interest at 15% annually until it is paid in full, according to a business news network.
The New Mexico Department of Justice said the case reached beyond Cambridge Analytica. It also covered Facebook’s representations about its data practices and its efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech. The trial examined statements on user privacy, third-party access to personal information and the handling of harmful content.
The state brought the case on its own rather than joining a multistate settlement, the department said.
“Today’s result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable,” New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said in the statement.
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