A judge in the U.S. state of New Mexico levied a billion-dollar fine against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
In September, a jury found the social media provider guilty of deceiving citizens in the state regarding how the company collects and protects user data. Specifically, the jury determined that Meta committed over 43 million violations of the state’s law against unfair business practices.
The judge justified the maximum possible penalty allowed under the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act by citing several factors in his decision. He stated that “the exceptionally high number of intentional violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the behavior, the breadth of topics where violations occurred, the involvement of Facebook’s top management, the size of the targeted audience in New Mexico, and the clearly intentional and systemic nature of the repeated false statements by Facebook, justify the highest possible fine.” This fine is set at $5,000 per violation.
Based on the 43 million detected violations, the maximum potential penalty could have reached $219.5 billion. However, the judge ultimately reduced the final penalty to $25 billion.
The case draws parallels to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm was accused of obtaining data from 87 million Facebook users without their consent. Those services, reportedly, were used for targeted advertising during the U.S. presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum.
