Meta Platforms has been ordered to pay $25 billion to the US state of New Mexico after a jury found that Facebook repeatedly misled consumers about how it handled their personal data, third-party access, misinformation and hate-speech policies.
The judgment, issued by a New Mexico state judge on October 21, 2026, is one of the largest financial penalties ever imposed on a technology company in the United States. The case stems from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which exposed concerns over the use of Facebook users' personal information for political profiling and targeting.
The case is significant because it did not simply concern whether Meta suffered a data breach. Instead, New Mexico argued that Facebook made public promises about protecting users' information and enforcing its policies while internal evidence showed that the company's practices did not always match those representations.
A jury ultimately agreed with the state.
Jury found 26 misleading statements
The case was built around 29 statements made by Facebook and its senior executives about privacy, third-party access to user information, misinformation and hate speech.
On September 25, the jury found 26 of those statements misleading and determined that Meta had committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer-protection laws.
The statements were made over a period stretching from 2010 to 2021 and included public communications, interviews, earnings calls and other statements involving Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.
The jury's findings covered five broad areas: users' control over their personal information, third-party access to friends' data, misinformation, hate speech and whether Facebook consistently enforced its own policies.
The case therefore went beyond the Cambridge Analytica incident itself.
New Mexico argued that Cambridge Analytica provided evidence of a broader problem: Facebook had made assurances about user privacy and third-party access that were not always reflected in how the platform actually operated.
Cambridge Analytica scandal at the centre
The origins of the dispute go back to the 2018 revelation that Cambridge Analytica had obtained personal information connected to potentially 87 million Facebook users through a third-party application.
The British political consulting firm was accused of using Facebook data to develop voter profiles and support political targeting.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez subsequently sued Meta in 2021, alleging that the company had misled consumers about who could access their information and how Facebook protected users' data.
The state argued that Facebook knew third-party developers had broad access to personal information but nevertheless presented its privacy protections to users in a more reassuring manner.
Evidence presented at trial also examined Facebook's response after the Cambridge Analytica scandal became public.
Facebook had promised to investigate applications that might have improperly obtained personal information, remove developers responsible for misuse, ensure improperly obtained data was deleted and notify affected users.
The jury found that Facebook failed to fully deliver on some of those promises despite internal evidence showing shortcomings in its investigation and enforcement processes.
Why the penalty reached $25 billion
The $25 billion figure is enormous, but it was actually substantially lower than the maximum penalty available under New Mexico law.
The state's Unfair Practices Act permits penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
With more than 43 million violations identified by the jury, the theoretical maximum would have exceeded $219 billion.
New Mexico's lawyers asked the judge for between $35 billion and $40 billion.
Meta, meanwhile, argued that the penalty should be capped at approximately $3.45 billion. The company argued that a larger award could discourage businesses from operating in New Mexico and maintained that the evidence did not establish that individual consumers were actually misled.
Judge Francis Mathew ultimately ordered Meta to pay $25 billion.
The judge's ruling said the company's conduct was intentional and systematic, with the court describing the repeated misstatements as going to the heart of Facebook's business practices.
The judgment also carries 15% annual interest until it is paid, according to Bloomberg Law's report on the ruling.
Meta plans to appeal
Meta has rejected the ruling and said it expects to prevail on appeal.
The company's chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, argued that New Mexico's approach effectively seeks to impose a penalty on speech and could make it difficult for businesses to operate in the state.
That means the $25 billion judgment does not necessarily represent money that Meta will immediately transfer to New Mexico.
The company is expected to challenge the ruling through the appeals process, and the final financial outcome could therefore change.
The legal battle could continue for years given the size of the judgment and the constitutional and statutory questions raised by the case.
Meta says it does not sell user data
One of Meta's central arguments has been that the case mischaracterizes how its business handles personal information.
In court filings, the company argued that Meta does not sell user data and that New Mexico had not proved that consumers were actually deceived in the manner alleged by the state.
The distinction is important.
Meta's business model relies heavily on using information about users to deliver targeted advertising, but that is different from directly selling users' personal information to advertisers.
The New Mexico case instead focused on what Meta told users about its privacy controls and whether those statements accurately represented the company's practices.
A second major New Mexico case against Meta
The $25 billion judgment is not Meta's only recent legal setback in New Mexico.
Earlier in 2026, another New Mexico jury found Meta liable over allegations concerning the safety of children using its platforms.
That case resulted in a $375 million civil penalty, followed later by an additional $567 million payment and court-supervised measures aimed at protecting young users.
Together, the cases demonstrate the increasingly aggressive approach taken by New Mexico authorities toward Meta.
While several states have pursued legal action against the company collectively, New Mexico has frequently taken an independent approach rather than relying entirely on multistate settlements.
The legacy of the $5 billion FTC settlement
The latest case also brings renewed attention to Meta's previous privacy penalties.
In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay the US Federal Trade Commission $5 billion to resolve allegations that it had violated a 2012 privacy order.
That settlement followed the Cambridge Analytica revelations and was, at the time, the largest penalty the FTC had imposed on a company for a privacy-related violation.
Meta also agreed to a $725 million settlement in 2022 to resolve a consumer class action arising from the Cambridge Analytica controversy.
The New Mexico judgment now represents a dramatically larger financial figure.
What the ruling could mean for Big Tech
The case could have consequences beyond Meta.
New Mexico used a general consumer-protection law rather than relying exclusively on a modern privacy statute specifically written for social-media companies.
That approach could encourage other state authorities to examine the public privacy promises made by technology companies and compare them with their internal practices.
The legal theory is relatively straightforward: if a company makes specific representations to consumers and those representations are found to be misleading, existing consumer-protection laws may provide a route for enforcement.
That could place additional pressure on technology companies to ensure that their privacy policies, public statements and actual data-handling practices remain closely aligned.
The ruling also illustrates the financial risk that can arise from statements made years earlier.
The jury examined communications dating back more than a decade, meaning that companies' historical representations can remain relevant long after their policies and technologies have changed.
What happens next
The immediate next stage is likely to be Meta's appeal.
The company will challenge the judgment and the legal basis for the $25 billion penalty.
New Mexico, meanwhile, will defend the jury's findings and the judge's decision.
The case could therefore become an important test of how far state consumer-protection laws can be used to punish large technology companies for misleading statements about privacy and platform policies.
For Facebook users, the case also revives a question that has followed Meta since the Cambridge Analytica scandal: how much control do users actually have over the personal information they provide to social-media platforms?
The jury's verdict did not establish that every Facebook user's data was improperly sold or transferred. Instead, it found that Meta had made numerous misleading statements concerning its handling of user information and other platform policies.
The $25 billion judgment is therefore as much about the company's public promises as it is about the underlying data controversy.
And with Meta planning to appeal, the legal fight over those promises is far from over.
