{"id":810392,"date":"2026-10-22T13:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T13:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810392\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T13:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T13:32:13","slug":"facebooks-wrongdoing-why-has-meta-been-fined-25bn-in-new-mexico-technology-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810392\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Facebook\u2019s wrongdoing\u2019: Why has Meta been fined $25bn in New Mexico? | Technology News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tech giant has been accused of misleading users regarding data privacy linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.<\/p>\n

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Published On 22 Oct 202622 Oct 2026<\/p>\n

A judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta Platforms to pay the US state $25bn<\/a> after a court found the company intentionally misled consumers about the privacy of their data.<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook\u2019s wrongdoing \u2013 over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public \u2013 goes to \u2060the heart of Facebook\u2019s core business practices,\u201d Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order, which came more than three weeks after the verdict.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The judge found that a penalty of more than $219bn was warranted based on state law, but he reduced the figure to $25bn.<\/p>\n

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said it was one of the largest, if not the largest, single state verdict against \u2060a company in United States history.<\/p>\n

CJ Mahoney, Meta\u2019s chief legal officer, said the company was confident it would win on appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ruling, and the Attorney General\u2019s approach to this enforcement, makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico,\u201d Mahoney said in a statement. \u201cAt its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech \u200cto enforce new rules for what people can say online.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the lawsuit about?<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s attorney general sued Meta in 2021 following revelations that Cambridge Analytica had harvested personal data<\/a> from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.<\/p>\n

Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct British political consulting firm, harvested Facebook data to generate targeted political advertisements during the 2016 election season, when it worked for Donald Trump\u2019s successful presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

The state accused Meta of lying to Facebook users in New Mexico about who had access to their data and its handling of hate speech \u2060and misinformation posted on the platform.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the state cited a 2010 Washington Post op-ed in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the company did not sell user data.<\/p>\n

They alleged the company knew third parties had broad access to users\u2019 data and tolerated hate speech \u2060or other harmful content when it benefitted the company\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n

Torrez, New Mexico\u2019s attorney general, said the judgement \u201cshould be a signal, an unambiguous message, to Silicon Valley\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta is facing thousands of lawsuits and pressure from lawmakers over the impact of Instagram and Facebook on teen mental health.<\/p>\n

A trial brought by a coalition of state attorneys general in a California federal court began in August over claims the company engineered Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children, which could expose the company to huge damages and force it to make sweeping changes to its platforms.<\/p>\n

It will also address claims by 29 states that the company illegally collected and used children\u2019s data in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

Six other states settled their lawsuits related to Cambridge Analytica for $459m, as part of a $17bn multistate \u200csettlement Meta reached in August to resolve states\u2019 claims that the company\u2019s platforms had harmed teen mental health.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, New Mexico won $942m in two trials against Meta over claims it \u2060facilitated sexual exploitation of young people on Instagram and Facebook and misled consumers about the platforms\u2019 safety.<\/p>\n

The American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit that supports stronger policies towards corporations, said the latest fine of $25bn is \u201ca drop in the bucket for Meta\u201d, but demonstrates that people want accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, they are rolling out Muse, an AI assistant encouraging people to trust it with everything from their bank accounts to their medical information,\u201d the nonprofit\u2019s Executive Director Nidhi Hegde said. \u201cWhich is why we need more enforcers with courage and laws with actual teeth to rein them in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tech giant has been accused of misleading users regarding data privacy linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,50,86,56,54,158,55,3544],"class_list":["post-810392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}