Home · Technology · Oct 21 archive
Meta Fined $25 Billion Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal
· Confirmed
In Short: A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties over the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.
A New Mexico court ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to pay $25 billion in penalties over the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, according to a ruling by Judge Francis Joseph Mathew on Wednesday.
The scandal, which emerged in 2018, involved the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica improperly accessing the information of 87 million users, raising questions about Facebook's data handling practices.
Judge Mathew found that Meta had more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's unfair practices act, with each violation carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000.
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico in 2021, which was not part of the broader settlement Meta reached with a coalition of state attorneys general in August.
Meta previously resolved various Cambridge Analytica-derived data privacy lawsuits across the nation as part of an overarching settlement of nearly $17 billion.
The $25 billion penalty was cut from an initial $219.5 billion after a jury found more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's unfair practices act.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the penalty is “one of the largest, if not the largest, ever imposed on a company in the United States.”
Meta chief legal officer C.J. Mathew said in a filing that “Facebook did not conduct the comprehensive investigation that it promised” following the Cambridge Analytica revelations.
The judge wrote that “the extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act – $5,000 per violation found by the jury.”
What this adds
The ruling adds to the ongoing legal battles Meta has faced since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in 2018.
Meta has been ordered to pay $25 billion in penalties, a significant increase from the $725 million it agreed to pay in 2022 to settle a class action lawsuit related to the scandal.
Background
Judge Francis Mathew of New Mexico District Court found that Meta had more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices act, with each violation carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000.
The scandal, which emerged in 2018, involved the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica improperly accessing the information of 87 million users, raising questions about Facebook's data handling practices.
What's confirmed
- "At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online." 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.
- Although the jury concluded that Meta had more than 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.
- He added that "this penalty order demonstrates that those violations carry real consequences." Meta chief legal officer C.J.
- Jury Under a Consumer Protection Law First and Only Jury Verdict Holding Meta Accountable for the Cambridge Analytica Scandal SANTA FE, N.M.
- In August, Meta was ordered to pay $567 million to help reform Facebook and Instagram.
- In the meantime, Meta will continue to build a safe and free platform to connect millions of Americans, grow small businesses, and help the country maintain its competitive edge.
What's still developing
- 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.
- During the trial, prosecutors argued, among other things, that Meta’s public statements about the platform’s privacy protections had misled the entire population of the state, not just Facebook users.
- Interest will accrue on the unpaid balance at 15 percent a year until Meta settles the debt in full.
- A jury in Santa Fe found Meta liable in September for misleading New Mexico residents about how it collected and safeguarded their data and how it prevented harmful information from spreading.
- Numerous conservatives have criticized the New Mexico verdict.
- Last month, a jury in Santa Fe found that Meta was liable for misleading citizens about how it safeguards and collects user data.
- “This outcome should serve as a signal, an unambiguous message to Silicon Valley,” Torrez said, adding that the money should go towards educational initiatives.
- Meta, the tech giant, must pay nearly $25 billion after misleading residents of the US state of New Mexico about Facebook, Sweden Herald reports.