The Story So Far: Meta was ordered on Wednesday (October 21, 2026) to pay a fine of $25 billion to the U.S. state of New Mexico after a jury found last month that the company had misled its users regarding data privacy, in a case related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This is one of the largest financial penalties imposed on a corporation in U.S. history, as well as a landmark victory holding Facebook liable under the State’s consumer protection law.
C. J.
Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said in a statement that the company is confident it will win on appeal. “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,” Mr. Mahoney said, adding that the “lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech”.
However, it was later revealed that the platform did not conduct the comprehensive probe that it had promised. Among the assurances given as part of ADI was an inquiry into all apps that had access to user data prior to the 2014 platform change and ensuring the deletion of improperly obtained data. Its investigation found at least 2,000 unique apps associated with data misuse. Out of this, it was able to associate 1,585 applications with New Mexico user accounts. Those affected the data of at least 11,46,225 New Mexican Facebook users. Taking these factors into consideration, the New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties. The judge said that a penalty of more than $219 billion would be justified under state law, which allows a $5,000 penalty for each violation, but he reduced the amount. He also ordered that the penalty shall accrue an annual interest of 15% until it was paid in full. Meta said penalties of no more than $3.45 billion were warranted.
Moreover, it did not have the ability to conduct such a thorough investigation or enforce deletion of data. Facebook had also committed to notifying users about data breach. However, it was found that Facebook did not inform the user about this.
Following the revelations, Facebook assured that it would conduct an “App Developer Investigation” (ADI). The Court further said that it will “reserve on injunctive relief pending further briefing in this matter”.
