US judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading Facebook users

“Facebook promised users they were in control of their data. That was false.” The sentence comes from Judge Francis Mathew of the New Mexico district court. On October 21, he ordered Meta to pay $25 billion to the U.S. state for misleading Facebook users about the protection of their privacy.

The ruling concludes a lawsuit the state launched in 2021 under its consumer protection law. On September 25, a jury had already ruled on the merits. All that remained was to set the amount. According to Al Jazeera, it is the largest fine ever imposed on the company.

What did the jury find against Meta?

The state accused Meta of lying about third-party access to personal data, about how it handles hate speech and disinformation, and about other internal rules. Jurors found 26 of the 29 statements by the company and its executives put before them to be misleading.

The case goes back in part to Cambridge Analytica. An app built by a researcher had harvested, without their consent, the data of up to 87 million Facebook users. The firm Cambridge Analytica used it to target voters, notably for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

From $219 billion to $25 billion: how the amount was set

The jury counted more than 43 million violations, multiplying each statement by the number of people who received it, according to NBC News. State law provides for up to $5,000 per violation. The judge found that a penalty of more than $219 billion was justified, before reducing it to $25 billion. The state had asked for between $35 billion and $40 billion. Meta proposed a cap of $3.45 billion.

The money is to go to the state's school system, according to Attorney General Raúl Torrez. He says the ruling should be “an unambiguous message” to Silicon Valley. For scale: in 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Facebook $5 billion over the same Cambridge Analytica affair.

Meta disputes the ruling and will appeal

The company does not intend to pay as things stand. Its chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, says it will win on appeal. In his view, the ruling makes it “nearly impossible to do business” in New Mexico, and the lawsuit amounts to “taxing speech.” At the hearing, Meta's lawyer, Matt Nicholson, argued that the jury had not established that a single resident saw or heard these statements, or suffered harm from them. In its filings, Meta also says it does not sell its users' data.

This is not Meta's first setback in the state. In March, another jury ordered it to pay $375 million in civil penalties for misleading the public about the safety of young users. A judge then ordered it to pay $567 million into a fund dedicated to teen mental health.

The appeal is expected to be long and could reduce the sum. For European users, the case is a reminder that the privacy promises a platform displays can be treated as commitments, just as Meta is changing how it uses its advertisers' data.