NEW MEXICO JUDGE ORDERS META TO PAY $25 BILLION

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties over violations of the state’s unfair practices law linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The court calculated penalties for more than 43 million violations at the maximum rate of $5,000 each. That calculation produced a total of more than $219 billion, which the judge reduced to $25 billion. A jury ruled in September that Meta misled consumers about how it protected their data and prevented misinformation and hate speech on its platforms.

The case followed a complaint filed in 2021 after disclosures that Cambridge Analytica, a UK political consultancy, harvested data from millions of Facebook accounts. Cambridge Analytica used the data to identify messages likely to resonate with voters before Donald Trump’s first presidential election. The judge said the jury had found the violations wilful. The judge also cited the conduct’s duration and repetition, the range of subjects involved and the involvement of senior Facebook leaders in setting the penalty rate.

Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said: “This ruling, and the Attorney General’s approach to this enforcement, makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico.” Mahoney said the lawsuit sought to impose a tax on speech and enforce new rules about what people could say online. He said Meta expected to prevail on appeal. The order exceeds the amount Meta agreed to pay in a recent settlement concerning children’s online safety.