{
  "id": 15952746,
  "title": "Meta ordered to pay $25 billion in user privacy case",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/21/meta-ordered-to-pay-25-billion-in-user-privacy-case",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-21T20:21:12.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Mashable",
    "slug": "mashable",
    "url": "https://mashable.com/tech/meta-ordered-to-pay-25-billion-consumer-privacy"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Meta has been ordered to pay $25 billion to New Mexico for violating consumer protection laws. The ruling, issued by a New Mexico judge last Wednesday, is the latest outcome of a 2021 lawsuit the state filed. The legal dispute originated from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the U.K. data firm working for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign unlawfully obtained and misused personal information from over 50 million Facebook users.\n\nNew Mexico's lawsuit alleged that Facebook had misled consumers regarding its data privacy practices and its approach to handling misinformation and hate speech. In a recent trial, a New Mexico jury determined that Meta had breached the state's consumer protection statute nearly 44 million times. The jury also found Facebook liable for the misconduct of its executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, for making misleading statements about user control of data, third-party misuse of data, misinformation, hate speech, and consistent enforcement of regulations, even when internal evidence indicated Facebook could not uphold these claims.\n\nJudge Francis J. Mathew expressed concern that the decision and penalty would make it \"all but impossible\" for Meta to conduct business in New Mexico. Meta's Chief Legal Officer, C.J. Mahoney, refuted this claim, stating that the lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce new online regulation rules. Mahoney is confident that the case will be successful on appeal.\n\nThe Federal Trade Commission had previously imposed a $5 billion penalty on Facebook for privacy violations in 2019. In August, Meta reached a $17 billion settlement with states over alleged addictive platform design. Earlier this month, another New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay nearly $1 billion in a separate case concerning youth mental health and data privacy. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez emphasized that the consumer privacy lawsuit demonstrated that corporations must adhere to the state's consumer protection laws, stating that the case is about corporations misleading consumers about the use of their personal information without facing consequences.",
  "summary": "The Cambridge Analytica scandal became the starting point for New Mexico's case against Meta.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}