Meta hit with $25b penalty over user deception

Ruling follows verdict over Facebook data scandal

SAN FRANCISCO:

A New Mexico judge ruled on Wednesday that tech giant Meta must pay $25 billion to the state after a jury found last month that the social media giant had deceived users in a case related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to media reports.

The penalty comes a couple of months after Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle claims brought by 48 other states, including allegations tied to Cambridge Analytica – a political consulting firm found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users during the 2016 US elections.

Revelations at the time showed that the firm had obtained data gathered through a personality quiz app called "thisisyourdigitallife," which was installed by about 270,000 users but also collected information on their friends. In total, the app reached roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.

Facebook learned in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had acquired the data but did not disclose it publicly until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward, sparking a major political scandal. Jurors in the New Mexico trial found that the misconduct affected all of the state's more than 2.1 million residents.

Earlier this year, New Mexico won nearly $1 billion in combined penalties against Meta in a separate case over harms to children. In March, a jury in that case ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company liable for endangering children by making them vulnerable to predators on its platforms.

In August, a judge ordered Meta to implement product changes and pay an additional $567 million to the state to fund the treatment and prevention of harms caused by Facebook and Instagram.