Meta Fined $25 Billion Over Deceptive Privacy Promises, to Appeal

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent of Facebook, was ordered by a US court to pay a $25 billion fine for deceiving users over promises about control of their personal data. Meta said it plans to appeal, challenging the calculation of the penalty.

The Associated Press and other outlets reported on October 21 that Judge Francis Mathew of the district court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, found Meta violated the state's consumer protection law through its privacy and content moderation policies. “Facebook promised users they could directly control their data, but that was false,” Mathew said.

The court found about 43.9 million violations. At $5,000 for each violation, the total would have come to about $220 billion. The court reduced that amount and set the final penalty at $25 billion. That is five times the $5 billion fine imposed by the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over the same matter.

The case stems from the 2016 US presidential election, when a political consulting firm collected personal data from 87 million Facebook users without consent and used it for targeted political advertising. In August, 48 US states reached an $18 billion settlement with Meta, but New Mexico and Florida continued with separate lawsuits.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the ruling one of the largest verdicts ever won by a state against a corporation in US history. He described it as a signal to Silicon Valley and a clear message. Under the state constitution, the fine will be directed to the education budget, though any payment could be delayed by the appeals process.

Meta said the maximum penalty that can legally apply in the case is no more than $3.4 billion. That leaves a $21.6 billion gap between the court's penalty and the ceiling Meta says should apply.