Meta fined $25 billion for deceiving social media users about their data protection

Meta, the company that owns, among other things, the social networks Facebook and Instagram and the messenger WhatsApp, has been assigned the largest fine in its history in a personal data protection case. On Wednesday, a judge in the American state of New Mexico ordered the company to pay $25 billion, writes the BBC.

The decision was issued following a two-week civil trial held earlier this year in Santa Fe District Court. The majority of jurors found that Meta (formerly known as Facebook) had misled users for many years, primarily Facebook users, regarding how it handled their personal data.

“The deception concerned not only Facebook’s methods of handling user data,” the judge stated, adding that it affected “the very foundation of Facebook’s business practices.”

This is the largest fine ever imposed on Meta. This year, the company has already been fined in several other lawsuits or agreed to their settlement. In particular, it reached an agreement with the governments of a coalition of states and territories led by California for $18 billion in a child safety case.

“Deliberate Lies”

The lawsuit was triggered by Meta’s (then known as Facebook) role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This firm, which later closed down, used Facebook user data in its political consulting services, including projects related to the 2016 US presidential election, in which Donald Trump first won.

New Mexico authorities filed a lawsuit against the company due to numerous statements by Meta executives who had claimed for many years that user data was never sold or transferred to third parties. In reality, this was happening.

On Wednesday, Judge Francis Mathew issued a ruling on the fine, the amount of which approximately corresponds to Meta's quarterly profit.

According to him, the company's violations of the law and false statements about how Facebook user data was used and to whom it was transferred were “deliberate” and continued for “more than 11 years”—from 2010 to 2021.

In his ruling, Judge Mathew noted that correspondence between senior company executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, was “aimed at misleading the public.”

Initially, the fine, according to New Mexico state law, amounted to $219 billion, based on $5,000 for each of the 43 million violations established by the jury. However, Judge Mathew reduced the amount to $25 billion.

Meta announced that it would appeal. “At its core, this lawsuit seeks to tax speech, so as to apply new rules about what people can say online. We are confident we will prevail on appeal,” the New York Times quoted Meta's chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, as saying.

“For too long, powerful tech companies have acted as if their size and influence placed them above the law. Today’s decision makes clear that no corporation can be so powerful that it cannot be held accountable,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez.

The state of New Mexico sought to fine Meta $40 billion. The company insisted that any fine exceeding $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional.

New Mexico has become one of Meta's most active opponents in legal proceedings. Earlier this year, a state court ordered the company to pay nearly $1 billion in fines and damages for misleading the public about the safety of its social platforms for children.

The judge presiding over that case compared Meta to an industrial enterprise polluting the atmosphere.

Only in Meta's case, according to him, such “pollution” becomes “psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children.”

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