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Meta hit with $25 billion New Mexico verdict over privacy lies
A jury found the company made 43 million violations of state consumer protection law by deceiving users about data practices tied to Cambridge Analytica.
What happened
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion on October 21 after a jury found the company deceived users about privacy and content moderation on Facebook. The verdict stems from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in 2021 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm obtained personal data from roughly 87 million Facebook users. The jury in September found Meta liable on 26 of 29 public statements it and its leadership made about user data controls and harmful content handling.
That verdict identified 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection statutes, each carrying a potential $5,000 penalty. Judge Francis Mathew calculated the maximum penalty at over $219 billion but reduced it to $25 billion, noting that "Facebook's wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices." The penalty comes two months after Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle child-safety claims brought by 48 other states, which declined to join New Mexico's separate suit.
Meta said it will appeal, arguing the ruling makes it impossible to do business in the state and amounts to "a tax on speech." Attorney General Torrez called it one of the largest verdicts ever won by a single state against a company.
Chanakya's Move
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez executed a high-stakes gamble: rather than settling like 48 other states, he pursued a jury trial on specific, itemized statements Meta made about privacy and content moderation. By winning on 26 of 29 statements and securing a $25 billion judgment (reduced from $219 billion), Torrez achieved two strategic wins: (1) he established a court precedent showing that state-level consumer protection laws can reach retroactively into corporate messaging, and (2) he signaled to other state AGs that individual state litigation can yield larger per-state payouts than multi-state settlements. This approach is riskier than settlement—appellate courts often overturn or reduce such verdicts—but if it holds, Torrez creates a template for other states to pursue similar claims. Meta's countermove is now appellate: challenging both the jury's findings on what was "misleading" and the constitutionality of the penalty under excessive-fines doctrine. The real battlefield is whether this verdict will survive appeal; if it does, it could spawn a wave of copycat state litigation over historical privacy statements.