A courtroom in New Mexico has delivered a staggering blow to Meta, ordering the social media company to pay $25 billion (€22.2bn) after a jury found it deceived users in a case tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The decision lands just two months after Meta agreed to pay $18bn to settle claims brought by 48 other states, including allegations connected to Cambridge Analytica.
Meta condemned 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,” the company 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, notably during the 2016 US presidential election.
Investigations later revealed the firm accessed information collected through a personality quiz app, “thisisyourdigitallife”. About 270,000 people installed the app, but it also pulled data from their friends.
Altogether, the app reached roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.
Facebook became aware in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had obtained the data, but the company did not make the matter public until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward and ignited widespread controversy.
In the New Mexico case, jurors concluded 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 outcome as a “historic” victory.
The case, Mr Torrez said in a statement, centered on “about whether corporations can mislead consumers about what happens to their personal information without facing meaningful consequences”.
“New Mexico stood its ground”, he added.
Mounting legal pressure
Meta has been confronting a growing slate of legal challenges in recent months.
Earlier this year, New Mexico secured nearly $1bn in combined penalties against Meta in a separate case focused on harms to children.
In that matter, a jury ordered Meta to pay $375m after finding it liable for endangering children by making them vulnerable to predators on its platforms, among other harms.
Then in August, a judge directed Meta to roll out product changes and pay an additional $567m to the state 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, plus Washington DC, to resolve allegations that it deliberately engineered its platforms to hook young users, misled the public about the risks and unlawfully collected data from children under 13.
Under that settlement, Meta agreed to major changes affecting teenage Facebook and Instagram accounts, with portions of the deal contingent on other major social media companies adopting similar measures.
In September, TikTok agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m and introduce limits for teen users, sidestepping a trial over claims related to child safety on the platform.
TikTok has previously settled other cases that were headed for trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit filed by a young woman and a suit brought by a Kentucky school district.
In a landmark trial that ended in March, Meta and YouTube were convicted by a Los Angeles jury, which found both companies responsible for a teenager’s social media addiction.
That jury awarded the teenager $6m.
