Meta ordered to pay US$25B for deceiving users on privacy
SAN FRANCISCO — A New Mexico judge on Wednesday ordered Meta to pay US$25 billion for deceiving users about its data privacy practices, one of the largest penalties levied against a tech giant.
New Mexico sued Meta in 2021 over a scandal involving political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, saying the social media company had misled users with its public statements about their data privacy. Last month, after a two-week trial, a jury in state district court in Santa Fe ruled against Meta, saying the company had committed 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws. Each violation carried a penalty of up to US$5,000.
On Wednesday, Judge Francis J. Mathew of state district court in Santa Fe issued the landmark penalty, writing that the company and its executives purposefully misled the public.
“The harm in this matter is difficult to overstate, and goes to the heart of Facebook’s basic business proposition,” Mathew wrote in a 20-page judgment. He said the “extraordinary number of wilful violations” that repeated over years “support the highest level of penalty.”
The order is the biggest blow yet to Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as it has racked up court losses over the harms that its social media platforms have caused users. States and consumers have filed thousands of lawsuits over issues such as how Facebook and Instagram endangered child safety, led to social media addiction, used people’s data without their consent and infringed on their privacy.
New Mexico has been leading the charge against Meta, and winning. In August, a New Mexico judge ordered the company to pay US$567 million in damages after a jury ruled the company had enabled harm to young users, on top of a US$375-million penalty from the same case in March.
In both cases, New Mexico accused Meta of violating state consumer protection laws, which have emerged as an effective way to litigate tech companies that have been previously shielded by laws that protect free speech, said Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
New Mexico will apply the US$25 billion awarded Wednesday toward a public education fund, according to the state.
Meta said it would appeal the decision.
— New York Times