If the maximum penalty is imposed across all violations found by the jury, the amount would exceed $219 billion.
A New Mexico jury has found Facebook liable for tens of millions of violations of the state’s consumer protection law, potentially exposing the social media platform to billions of dollars in fines.
A Santa Fe jury on Sept. 25 found that Facebook committed more than 43.8 million violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act through false or misleading statements to consumers, according to the New Mexico Department of Justice.
“The verdict marks a significant victory for New Mexico consumers and holds one of the world’s largest technology companies accountable for its conduct,” the department stated.
The verdict followed a roughly two-week trial stemming from a lawsuit the state of New Mexico filed in 2021 over Facebook’s handling of user data and statements that it made to consumers.
The case traces back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the now-defunct British political consulting firm obtained personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users and used the data for political profiling and targeted advertising.
New Mexico alleged that Facebook misled users about how their personal information could be shared with third parties and the extent of users’ control over their data.
The state also challenged statements that Facebook made after the Cambridge Analytica disclosures. Facebook stated that it would investigate applications that had obtained large amounts of user information, audit suspicious developers, ban those that misused data, and notify affected users.
Overall, the jury found 26 of the 29 Facebook statements challenged by the state to be misleading. Those statements covered Facebook’s data practices, as well as how it handled hate speech, misinformation, and exceptions to its platform rules.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, disputed the verdict.
“We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“Meta’s platforms are forums for free expression. We have a First Amendment right to manage those platforms in a way we believe best serves the interests of our community.
“This means prioritizing free speech, protecting our users’ information, and giving them control over their data.”
The size of any penalty has not yet been determined. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the state will seek the maximum penalty of $5,000 for each willful violation.
If imposed across all violations found by the jury, the theoretical maximum would exceed $219 billion. The final amount will be determined by the judge.
The state is also seeking court-ordered changes to Facebook’s practices. Torrez said those could include requiring the company to correct previous statements and undergo an audit of how it manages user data.
The verdict is Meta’s second major courtroom loss in New Mexico this year.
In a separate case involving the safety of young users, a jury in March imposed $375 million in civil penalties. A judge later ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million to address youth mental health harms and imposed court-supervised changes to Facebook and Instagram, bringing the company’s total financial exposure in that case to $942 million.
If you were a subscriber to the Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation, we have LEFT SUBSTACK! They were censoring us. You can find our LEAVING LOUDLY article HERE, with evidence of the censorship and WHY we believe they were censoring us.
We are sending this from our NEW censorship-resistant publishing platform that we just built for $25,000. We say "Censorship-Resistant" because while we have removed Substack's ability to stop sending you our content, we can (AND ARE!) being censored at the spam-filter level! Even though we have never spammed anyone and adhere to the best practices for e-mail newsletters!
You MUST whitelist News@ArtOfLiberty.email, AND even that is not a guarantee since we are dealing with organized crime and they are cheating!
Important News from the Art of Liberty Foundation has moved to ArtOfLiberty.Foundation, the Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation has moved to Voluntaryist.News, and Five Meme Friday has moved to FiveMemeFri.org. PLEASE BOOKMARK THESE NEW WEBSITES!
Finally, we need help to keep publishing! The new websites ended up costing over $5000 more than expected. Freedom isn't FREE! Please help us ckeep bringing you (and others!) the news, exposing honey pots like Substack, and keep publishing hard-hitting investigations and journalism from a principled voluntaryist perspective.
A $5 monthly Liberty Membership gets you access to all my books in ePub.
A $50 yearly membership gets you a paperback copy of my new book we are announcing this week: The Greatest Theft in Human History – How the Banks and “Government” Will Steal at Least $1.40 MILLION from the Typical Worker… “Legally” Domestic includes free shipping; international gets a $10 S&H credit and pays intl. shipping at cost!
Sponsors at the $125, $500, $1000, $5000, and $25,000 President's Club Level get a sneak peek at my new book: Organized Crime Theory (OCT) - The Surprisingly Scholarly and Well-Evidenced Thesis that "Government" is Intergenerational Organized Crime + AMAZING perks from T-Shirts to signed high-resolution hard copies of my books to an Art of Liberty conference + Turtle Party + Concert in your town with a VIP table for you and your friends and family!
Sign up at ArtOfLiberty.org/become-liberty-member/
