Washington (Web Desk): A court in the US state of New Mexico has ordered Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, to pay a $25 billion fine for providing misleading information about the privacy of users’ personal data.
The court’s decision came in a case involving allegations that Facebook had accessed users’ personal data without their permission. In his written order, Judge Francis Mathew ruled that the company’s violations had continued for several years and had affected the public on a large scale.
The court deemed a fine of more than $219 billion justified under state law. However, it ultimately reduced the penalty to $25 billion. The order was issued more than three weeks after a jury found Meta responsible for misleading users.
Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, C.J. Mahoney, announced that the company would appeal the decision, saying Meta was confident it would succeed. According to him, the ruling and the proceedings in the case would make doing business in New Mexico almost impossible. He alleged that the lawsuit was intended to place financial pressure on the company to restrict freedom of expression online.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez welcomed the ruling, describing it as one of the largest financial penalties imposed against a company in American history. He said the time had come to hold major technology companies accountable.
The New Mexico attorney general filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2021. The legal action followed revelations that British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained the personal data of approximately 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app. Cambridge Analytica was also associated with US President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, and the data obtained was used to profile voters and target them in specific ways.
State officials alleged that Meta had misled users about which individuals and organisations could access their personal data. The state also maintained that the company knew third-party organisations had extensive access to the data and that the platform had tolerated the spread of hateful content and misinformation.
In September, a jury ruled that Meta and its leadership had made 26 misleading statements concerning data privacy, hateful content and other matters. According to the jury, taking into account the potential audience for these statements, the company had committed more than 43 million violations of the state’s consumer protection laws.
During a hearing on October 1, state attorney Randy McGunn asked the court to impose a fine ranging from $35 billion to $40 billion, while Meta requested that the maximum penalty be capped at $3.45 billion. The company maintained that it did not sell users’ data and that the state had failed to prove that any user had actually been misled.
It is worth noting that, in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the US Federal Trade Commission had also fined Meta $5 billion in 2019.
In addition, Meta is facing other lawsuits concerning the effects of Instagram and Facebook on young people’s mental health and the exploitation of children.