Judge orders Meta to pay New Mexico 25 billion dollars

A state court penalised the tech company for millions of consumer protection violations after it opted out of a multistate settlement.

A state judge in Santa Fe ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion after a jury determined the company committed tens of millions of consumer protection violations over its handling of user privacy.¹² The civil judgment, handed down by Judge Francis Mathew of the First Judicial District of New Mexico, penalised the social media company for deceptive practices dating back to 2010.²¹ The penalty concluded a trial stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which New Mexico pursued independently after opting out of an earlier nationwide settlement.¹³

The penalty followed a September verdict in which jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act.³⁴ The state accused the company of systematically misleading the public regarding how third parties could access personal information and how content moderation standards were enforced.³⁴ Jurors concluded that the company made dozens of deceptive public representations about user data security, leaving the calculation of civil penalties to the court.⁴³

The foundation of the record

In his ruling, Judge Mathew noted that the statutory framework permitted fines up to $5,000 for each willful violation.³ While the initial statutory calculations awarded the state $219.5 billion, the court reduced the total assessment to $25 billion, attaching an annual interest rate of 15% until the judgment is satisfied in full.³ Mathew wrote that the trial record demonstrated senior corporate executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, knew the company made misleading statements to consumers.¹³

Mathew wrote that the evidence showed Facebook systematically misled the public and took advantage of user lack of knowledge to a grossly unfair degree.¹ The court determined that the conduct extended across more than 11 years, touching core operational systems rather than representing an isolated incident.¹ Trial filings showed that internal corporate correspondence detailed plans to avoid transparency with consumers in an effort to retain advertising revenue and compete with rival networks.¹

Internal communications reviewed during the proceedings revealed executive discussions about user privacy settings.¹ In one documented message cited by the court, Zuckerberg instructed staff to give users a chance to change their privacy settings while avoiding encouraging them to do so.¹ The court record also showed that Meta identified approximately 2,000 unique software applications associated with data misuse but notified consumers about only two of them, deliberately narrowing its internal definition of misuse to limit operational administrative burdens.¹

Independent state action

Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas initially filed the lawsuit in 2021, focusing on the harvesting of personal records from roughly 87 million accounts by political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.³⁴ Current Attorney General Raúl Torrez brought the case to trial after choosing not to participate in an $18 billion multi-state settlement that Meta reached with attorneys general across 48 other states earlier in the year.¹⁴ Florida was the only other state that declined to enter that agreement.⁴

Torrez argued during the proceedings that the deceptive practices affected the state's entire population of 2 million people, rather than only active platform account holders.¹⁴ Attorneys representing New Mexico asked the court to award between $35 billion and $45 billion, contending that an astronomical sum was required to influence executive decision-making.²⁴ Torrez stated that all funds collected from the financial judgment will be deposited into the state educational spending reserve to support public schools.²⁴

The trial in Santa Fe forced the disclosure of internal corporate studies examining content moderation and misinformation distribution.¹³ Judge Mathew noted in his opinion that Meta internal research documented significant concentrations of false political, scientific, and health claims across its systems, with false material appearing at higher concentrations among top-performing advertising posts than standard organic updates.¹ The evidence showed the company also maintained differing enforcement rules for high-profile accounts, providing warnings to select public figures before issuing account penalties while ordinary users faced immediate restrictions.¹

The constitutional challenge

Meta announced plans to challenge the penalty in appellate court, asserting that the financial award violates constitutional due process protections and creates insurmountable hurdles for operating within the state.¹⁴ Chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney stated that the ruling makes it all but impossible to conduct commercial operations in New Mexico.²³ Mahoney argued that the state action functioned as an unconstitutional tax on digital speech designed to impose novel state-level rules on online expression.²³

During closing arguments, defense attorneys led by Matt Nicholson maintained that the state failed to produce evidence showing that individual residents suffered tangible economic or personal harm from platform statements.⁴ Defense counsel argued that New Mexico based its liability calculations on theoretical exposures across the general public rather than verifying that specific citizens read individual platform notices.⁴ Meta maintained that any civil award should have remained below $3.4 billion, reflecting historical precedent from its $5 billion consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.¹⁴

Judge Mathew rejected that comparison in his written opinion, stating that previous federal consent decrees and regulatory fines failed to alter the company's compliance practices.¹ The court concluded that Meta repeatedly offered assurances regarding data ownership to induce individuals to share personal records.¹ The legal fight will proceed to appellate courts, where judges will evaluate whether statutory penalties tied to broad public exposure meet constitutional standards.

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The record

33 sentences trace to 4 sources.

All 4Documents 1Records 0Reporting 3People 0

1. 1 AB Ashley Belanger Document · arstechnica.com · 22 Oct 2026 Meta whines New Mexico is “impossible” to please after historic $25 billion fine See the source
2. 2 AN ABC News Third-party reporting · abcnews.com · 21 Oct 2026 Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25 billion for violating consumer protection laws See the source
3. 3 C CNBC Third-party reporting · cnbc.com · 21 Oct 2026 Meta ordered to pay $25 billion penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case See the source
4. 4 AN ABC News Third-party reporting · abcnews.com · 21 Oct 2026 Meta ordered to pay $25 billion for deceiving users about privacy on Facebook See the source

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