Meta ordered to pay $25bn in user data privacy case

Updated / Thursday, 22 Oct 2026 06:14

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A judge in the US state of New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion (€22.2bn) after a jury found last month that the social media giant had deceived users in a case related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The ruling comes two months after Meta agreed to pay $18bn to settle claims brought by 48 other states, including allegations tied to Cambridge Analytica.

Meta called the case a "a tax on speech".

"This ruling... makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico," Meta said in a statement. "We are confident we will prevail on appeal."

Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, notably during the 2016 US presidential election.

Revelations at the time showed that the firm had obtained data gathered through a personality quiz app called "thisisyourdigitallife", which was installed by about 270,000 users but also collected information on their friends.

In total, the app reached roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.

Facebook learned in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had acquired the data but did not disclose it publicly until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward, leading to widespread controversy.

Jurors in the New Mexico trial found that the misconduct affected all of the state's more than 2.1 million residents.

"We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement in September.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said the ruling was a "historic" win.

This case was "about whether corporations can mislead consumers about what happens to their personal information without facing meaningful consequences", Mr Torrez said in a statement.

"New Mexico stood its ground", he added.

Mounting legal pressure

Meta has faced a number of legal cases in recent months.

Earlier this year, New Mexico won nearly $1bn in combined penalties against Meta in a separate case over harms to children.

A jury in that case ordered Meta to pay $375m after finding the company liable for endangering children by making them vulnerable to predators on its platforms, among other harms.

In August, a judge ordered Meta to implement product changes and pay an additional $567m to the state to fund the treatment and prevention of harms caused by Facebook and Instagram.

That same month, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.7bn to 52 US states and territories, plus Washington DC, to settle claims that it deliberately engineered its platforms to hook young users, misled the public about the risks and unlawfully collected data from children under 13.

As part of that settlement, Meta agreed to make significant changes to Facebook and Instagram accounts used by teenagers and portions of the settlement hinge on other major social media companies agreeing to similar changes.

In September, TikTok agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m and enact limits for teen users, avoiding a trial over claims related to child safety on the platform.

TikTok previously settled other cases that were headed for trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit brought by a young woman and a suit from a Kentucky school district.

In a landmark trial that concluded in March, Meta and YouTube were convicted by a Los Angeles jury, which found both companies were responsible for a teenager's social media addiction.

That jury awarded the teenager $6m.