Meta must pay New Mexico $25 billion for misleading Facebook users about how it protected their data after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Judge Francis Mathew ruled, a month after a jury counted over 43 million violations of state consumer protection law. The state had asked for $35 billion to $40 billion, while Meta argued for a cap of $3.4 billion and said anything far higher would violate the Constitution. The jury had agreed that Facebook misled users about how it policed the quiz app that harvested roughly 87 million profiles on behalf of Cambridge Analytica, but rejected the state’s case over how it took down harmful posts. Meta chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said the ruling makes it “all but impossible to do business” in New Mexico, and Meta plans to appeal.
