New Mexico Hits Meta With a Historic $25 Billion Fine Over Facebook Privacy Lies

A Decade-Old Scandal Yields a Record-Shattering Verdict

A judge on October 21 ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for deceiving users about privacy — marking the largest fine ever against the owner of Facebook. The ruling lands nearly a decade after the Cambridge Analytica scandal first exploded into public view, and it sends an unmistakable message: the consequences for misleading billions of people about their most personal data can be staggering, even for one of the wealthiest companies on Earth.

The state's case focused on accusations that Facebook deceived users about a data breach stemming from a third-party personality quiz that harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, to generate targeted ads. After the scandal, Facebook promised more transparency, but the court found Meta failed to consistently inform users when their data was misused.

What the Jury Found — and What the Judge Decided

Jurors on September 25 found that 26 of 29 statements made by the company and its leadership on privacy and content moderation were misleading. They said the company had committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection laws, based on the number of Facebook users or New Mexico residents who were the audience for each misleading statement.

Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order that "Facebook's wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices." Mathew found that a penalty of more than $219 billion was warranted under state law, but he reduced the figure to $25 billion. Meta had pushed hard for a much lower number — lawyers for Meta argued for paying no more than $3.4 billion.

Historic Scale, Historic Stakes

State Attorney General Raúl Torrez described the judgment as "one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history." The award far exceeds the $5 billion fine that the Federal Trade Commission levied against Facebook in 2019. To put the scale in perspective, it comes out to about $12,000 per person in New Mexico — "quite unlike anything else we've seen," according to Villanova University associate law professor Peter Ormerod.

Under the New Mexico Constitution, fines for violations of consumer protection laws go toward state education spending. Attorney General Torrez confirmed following the verdict that all the money awarded would go into a fund for the state's education system. That means the penalty isn't just punitive — it's potentially transformative for New Mexico's schools.

Meta Plans to Fight Back — But the Signal Is Clear

Meta plans to appeal the $25 billion penalty. The company has argued that an award of this magnitude is unconstitutional and would not hold up under appeal, and that the state failed to prove misleading statements about privacy actually harmed New Mexicans. Although interest would accrue on the penalty during the appeal process, Meta could succeed in reducing the number of violations for which it is found liable.

New Mexico was the only state to take its claims to trial after 48 others settled — a calculated bet that paid off in spectacular fashion. Torrez said the verdict should be a warning for tech companies and that New Mexico would continue to hold them accountable, calling the judgment "an unambiguous message to Silicon Valley." Whether or not the full $25 billion survives appeal, the era of Big Tech treating privacy promises as cheap marketing copy may be drawing to a close.