BREAKING: Meta Forced to Pay $25 Billion Settlement for Privacy Breach
A state judge in New Mexico slapped Meta with one of the largest penalties on record for a tech company, ordering it to pay $25 billion for privacy violations and intentional misstatements.
The judgment came following a two-week trial in which a jury ruled against Meta, finding it liable for 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws in New Mexico, Mediaite reported.
Each violation will cost the big tech giant $5,000.
Judge Francis J. Mathew of the State District Court in Santa Fe lowered the initial amount of $200 billion, but ruled that Meta will face a 15 percent interest rate for each year that the sum goes unpaid.
Mathew wrote, “The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act — $5,000 per violation found by the jury.”
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez commented on the decision, saying, “The jury’s verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety.”
“Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew,” he added. “Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.”
New Mexico prosecutors argued that Facebook deceived consumers regarding a data breach from a third party, which was gathering information and selling it to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm.
Torrez had previously accused Meta of failing to protect children on its platforms from child predators, abuse, and human trafficking.
“Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” he said after filing the lawsuit back in 2023.
He said this recent ruling should deter other tech companies from making the same mistake, adding that the money will fund education in New Mexico.
“This judgement should be a signal, an unambiguous message, to Silicon Valley,” the state attorney general concluded.
Meta plans to appeal, however, with Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney saying that the company is confident the courts will rule in its favor, Reuters reported.
“This ruling, and the Attorney General’s approach to this enforcement, makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico,” he said. “At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online.”
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