A judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion civil penalty over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The Meta $25 billion penalty is one of the biggest fines ever given to a technology company by a US state.
Meta $25 Billion Penalty: Judge’s Ruling, Meta’s Response and Full Cambridge Analytica Story
Judge Francis Mathew announced the order in Santa Fe on Wednesday, October 21, 2026. He made the decision a few weeks after a jury found Meta responsible. The state had asked for much more, between $35 billion and $40 billion.
The jury decided that Meta broke New Mexico consumer protection law more than 43 million times. The law allows a fine of up to $5,000 for each violation. That is how the Meta $25 billion penalty reached such a huge number.
Jurors said Meta misled people about how it protects their personal data and how it handles harmful content. The case began after outside developers collected Facebook user data. That data then reached the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
Meta strongly disagrees with the verdict. After the jury decision in September, a company spokesperson said Meta would keep defending itself against what it called efforts to distort its record. The company also said it has a First Amendment right to manage its platforms in the way it thinks is best for its community.
Meta’s lawyers made similar arguments in court. They said a fine of $35 billion to $40 billion would be grossly disproportionate and would break the rules against excessive fines in both the US and New Mexico constitutions. They also said the state did not prove that any resident saw the statements in question or suffered harm because of them.
Meta asked the judge to choose a much smaller penalty, measured in hundreds of millions or low billions of dollars. The judge did not agree. Meta has now said it will appeal the Meta $25 billion penalty.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the decision one of the largest state verdicts against Meta in American history. He said it should be a clear warning to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, other social media companies, and even artificial intelligence firms. He also said the money will go to public education in the state.
Torrez said the payment could help build schools for the next hundred years. The state will only receive the money after the appeal process ends. That process may take a long time, and the final amount could change.
Most other states took a different path. In August, dozens of state attorneys general agreed to a multistate settlement with Meta worth more than $17 billion. That deal also protects Meta from future claims about the Cambridge Analytica breach.
New Mexico did not join the deal, and Florida stayed out as well. New Mexico chose to go to trial instead. This choice led to a result far larger than the settlement amount per state.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal became public in 2018. A personality quiz app collected data from Facebook users and their friends without clear consent. Cambridge Analytica then used the data to build voter profiles and target political ads before the 2016 US election.
Up to 87 million Facebook users were affected. Mark Zuckerberg later answered tough questions from US lawmakers. Regulators in many countries opened their own investigations.
The scandal has already cost Meta a lot of money. In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $5 billion to US federal regulators and $100 million to settle claims that it misled investors. In 2022, Meta paid $725 million to settle a US class action lawsuit and did not admit wrongdoing.
Australia’s privacy regulator also reached a 50 million Australian dollar settlement with Meta in 2024. New Mexico won other cases against the company this year too, including a large order over harm to young people. Even so, the Meta $25 billion penalty is the biggest single payment so far.
The ruling shows that US states are ready to take on big technology companies in court. Privacy experts expect other states and countries to study the New Mexico case. For Facebook users, it shows that courts take misleading privacy promises very seriously.
Meta will continue to fight in court. For now, the Meta $25 billion penalty remains a major moment for data privacy and Big Tech accountability.
Read more : GTA 6 news
Click here : TV Licence Streaming Plan Could Hit YouTube, Netflix Fans in UK
