A jury has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion to the state of New Mexico, finding the company responsible for nearly 44 million breaches of state consumer‑protection statutes. The sanction marks the largest fine ever levied against the social‑media giant.
The massive penalty stems from New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s decision not to join an $18 billion settlement that Meta secured earlier this year with attorneys general from almost every other state.
In a Wednesday opinion, U.S. District Judge Francis J. Mathew wrote that there is no “bright line rule” for setting a penalty in a case involving Meta’s “repeated and willful deception of users since 2010 about their ‘control of data, third‑party data misuse, misinformation, hate speech, and equal enforcement.’” The judge’s remarks underscore the breadth of the alleged misconduct that led to the unprecedented financial judgment.