Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been ordered to pay $25 billion following a New Mexico court ruling that found the technology giant misled the public about its handling of user data and other business practices.
The ruling, delivered by a judge on Wednesday after a two-week trial earlier this year, marks the largest fine imposed on Meta to date. The court found that the company had spent years misleading the public about its data practices, with the judge saying the alleged deception extended to the “heart of Facebook’s core business practices”.
Meta’s head lawyer, CJ Mahoney, criticised the decision, arguing that the financial penalty would make it “all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico”. The company intends to appeal, with Mahoney expressing confidence that the appeal will succeed.
The lawsuit centred partly on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consulting firm obtained data relating to millions of Facebook users. The information was used for political consulting, including work connected to the 2016 United States presidential election, which Donald Trump won.
New Mexico also accused Meta of misleading the public about how it benefited from content containing hate speech and how its policies against such material were enforced. The jury found that the company had intentionally misled the public on those issues as well.
