Meta ordered to pay $25bn in New Mexico over misleading public on user data
A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay $25bn for misleading the public over Facebook user data. According to the BBC, it is the largest fine to date against Facebook's owner.
Author: Editorial teamPublished: 2 min read
A court in the US state of New Mexico has ordered Meta, the owner of Facebook, to pay a $25bn penalty. The ruling concerns the sharing of Facebook users' data with Cambridge Analytica and misleading the public. The decision was reported on 21 October 2026.
According to the BBC's description, it is the largest fine imposed on Meta to date. It exceeds an $18bn deal reached with California.
What the case was about
The case was brought in 2021 by the New Mexico attorney general. It had previously been established that the British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica obtained the personal data of 87 million Facebook users. The scandal broke after it emerged that the data had been used to build a tool predicting voters' decisions and influencing their choices. The case concerned Donald Trump's first election campaign in 2016.
The court's reasoning
As reported by the Polish website Money.pl, the court found that Meta knowingly gave false information. It related to access to personal data, the handling of hate speech and other rules on the platform. The ruling indicates that the company's leadership knew about Cambridge Analytica's access to users' data.
The judge is also said to have found that Meta tolerated harmful material and hate speech when this benefited the company. The reasoning stressed an "extraordinary number" of violations and "systematic and knowing" misleading of the public.
What happens to the money
According to Money.pl, citing Reuters, the funds are to go to New Mexico's education system. Reuters also recalled that six months earlier a jury in the state found Meta guilty of misleading the public about the safety of young users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In that case the company was ordered to pay $567m and to introduce safeguards against dangerous content.
The available sources do not say whether Meta intends to appeal the ruling. Nor do they say whether it will affect how Facebook operates outside the United States.
Sources
This article was prepared with the help of AI from the listed sources and checked by our editors before publication.
Photos
- Cover: „mobile phone, smartphone, keyboard, app, internet”, author: geralt, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
- Photo 1: „hammer, libra, dish, justice, law”, author: succo, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
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