Meta Ordered to Pay $25 Billion in User Data Privacy Lawsuit

A sweeping courtroom defeat for Meta in New Mexico has now turned into a staggering price tag: a judge has ordered the social media company to pay $25 billion (€22.2bn) after a jury concluded last month that it deceived users in a case tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The order lands just two months after Meta agreed to pay $18bn to resolve a separate set of claims from 48 other states, including allegations connected to Cambridge Analytica.

Meta described the New Mexico case as “a tax on speech”.

“This ruling… makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico,” Meta said in a statement. “We are confident we will prevail on appeal.”

Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, was found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users and used it for targeted political advertising, including during the 2016 US presidential election.

Investigations and reports at the time pointed to a personality quiz app, “thisisyourdigitallife”, as the pipeline for the data. About 270,000 people installed the app, but it also pulled information about their Facebook friends.

Altogether, the app reached roughly 87 million Facebook users around the world.

Meta founder, chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (file pic)

Facebook learned in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had obtained the data, but did not disclose it publicly until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward and the issue erupted into broader controversy.

In the New Mexico trial, jurors determined that the misconduct touched every corner of the state, affecting all of its more than 2.1 million residents.

“We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement in September.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez hailed the court’s decision as a “historic” victory.

He said the case centered on a fundamental question: “about whether corporations can mislead consumers about what happens to their personal information without facing meaningful consequences”, Mr Torrez said in a statement.

“New Mexico stood its ground”, he added.

Mounting legal pressure

The $25bn ruling is the latest in a string of legal setbacks and settlements for Meta in recent months.

Earlier this year, in a separate matter focused on harms to children, New Mexico secured nearly $1bn in combined penalties against the company.

In that case, a jury ordered Meta to pay $375m after finding it liable for endangering children — including by leaving them vulnerable to predators on its platforms — among other harms.

Then in August, a judge directed Meta to make product changes and pay an additional $567m to New Mexico to support the treatment and prevention of harms linked to Facebook and Instagram.

Also in August, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.7bn to 52 US states and territories, along with Washington DC, to settle claims that it intentionally designed its platforms to hook young users, misled the public about the risks, and unlawfully collected data from children under 13.

That agreement included a commitment by Meta to implement significant changes to teen accounts on Facebook and Instagram, with portions of the settlement depending on other major social media companies adopting similar measures.

In September, TikTok agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m and put limits in place for teen users, sidestepping a trial over allegations related to child safety on the platform.

TikTok has previously settled other cases that were set for trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit filed by a young woman and a case brought by a Kentucky school district.

In March, a landmark trial in Los Angeles ended with a jury convicting Meta and YouTube, finding both companies responsible for a teenager’s social media addiction.

The jury in that case awarded the teenager $6m.