Meta Hit With $25B Penalty in New Mexico Data Case

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy case — one of the largest penalties ever imposed on a U.S. tech company. A Santa Fe jury found in September that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act by misleading residents about how it handles user data and prevents harmful content. Each violation carries a civil penalty of up to $5,000, which would have produced a theoretical maximum of $219.5 billion; Judge Francis Mathew reduced the final figure to $25 billion. The judge cited 'the extraordinary number of willful violations,' the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, and the 'systematic nature' of repeated misstatements as justification for applying the maximum per-violation rate. Interest will accrue at 15% annually until the fine is paid. Central to the ruling was the court's finding that 'Facebook did not conduct the comprehensive investigation that it promised' after the Cambridge Analytica scandal first broke roughly a decade ago. Meta has not yet publicly commented on whether it will appeal.