New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion penalty

State District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties on October 21, 2026, Deadline and Variety reported. The ruling in a New Mexico state court follows a civil trial in September in which a jury found the company liable for misleading users about privacy and content moderation on Facebook. [1][2]

The lawsuit was brought under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act, according to Deadline and Variety. Variety reported that the jury found Meta violated the law nearly 44 million times, while The Wrap reported that the jury found more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws. Business Insider noted that this penalty could be the largest in Meta's history. [1][2][4][7]

The state first filed the lawsuit in 2021 following the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal, Variety and Engadget reported. Engadget and Business Insider noted that the suit targeted Facebook's misleading statements regarding user data control and its failure to prevent misinformation, rather than the data harvesting itself. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the decision an unambiguous message to Silicon Valley, according to Gizmodo and Reuters. [2][3][4][5][8]

Facebook is an American social networking service created in 2004 and owned by Meta Platforms. The company previously settled a separate child safety lawsuit brought by a group of United States states for $18 billion last month, according to Business Insider. [4][13]