Meta ordered to pay $25 billion penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case

Meta was ordered to pay $25 billion in penalties by a New Mexico court on Wednesday as part of a data privacy case that stemmed from the company's Cambridge Analytica scandal from nearly a decade ago. The penalty, revealed in a court filing, comes after a jury in a Santa Fe courthouse found in September the social media giant liable for misleading state citizens about how it safeguards and collects user data and prevents harmful information from flourishing on its services. Although the jury concluded that Meta had over 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices act, with each transgression carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000, a New Mexico judge was responsible for determining the ultimate fine. The Wednesday filing showed that the state was awarded $219.5 billion, but the penalty was ultimately reduced to $25 billion. CNBC has reached out to Meta for comment on the penalty order. Meta previously resolved various Cambridge Analytica-derived data privacy lawsuits across the nation as part of an overarching August settlement of nearly $17 billion with a coalition of state attorneys general in a separate federal case related to child safety and mental health. But because New Mexico was not part of the settlement, the state's data privacy case that arose from Meta's Cambridge Analytica scandal proceeded to trial in September. In 2022, the social media giant agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit that also sprang from the company's Cambridge Analytica scandal that kicked off in 2018. That scandal rocked the Mark Zuckerberg-led company before its official name change to Meta, and focused on allegations that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed the information of 87 million users, raising questions about Facebook's data handling practices. Former New Mexico state Attorney General Hector Balderas originally filed the state's Cambridge Analytica-related lawsuit in 2021, while current AG Raúl Torrez oversaw the related trial. Torrez also led his state's child-safety related trial against Meta that resulted in a March jury ruling that the social media company should pay $375 million for violating the state's unfair practices act. A New Mexico judge would later order Meta to pay $567 million into an abatement fund as part of a second phase of the case that determined the social media's actions created a public nuisance. Meta said it disagreed with that New Mexico ruling and planned to appeal.