Meta Platforms has been ordered to pay a $25 billion civil penalty in New Mexico after a jury found that the company violated the state’s consumer protection law more than 43 million times. Here is what we know.
Jurors watched video testimony from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Meta has often paid large sums to settle cases linked to the leak: $5 billion to the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 $725 million in 2022 to settle a consumer class action $459 million this summer to settle cases from 46 states and two territories
As per Bloomberg, Meta Platforms Inc. has been ordered to pay a $25 billion civil penalty to the state of New Mexico. As per Bloomberg, a jury in Santa Fe found that Meta broke the state’s consumer protection law more than 43 million times. Under New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, the judge could order a penalty of up to $5,000 for each violation.
The case is about the company misleading consumers. It grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fine was issued by state court Judge Francis Mathew. The jury based this on widely seen misleading statements made by the company and its top executives. These statements were about how it handled hate speech and user data. He pointed to evidence that some high-profile accounts were not checked as strictly as regular users. New Mexico has been a major legal challenge for Meta. The state chose to take the company to court on its own instead of joining other states in legal action against it.
Torrez also accused Meta of misleading the public about how it handled content and hate speech, according to Bloomberg Law.
