Can you explain why the state is putting what their claim is on Facebook? It's hard for me to understand how a web page could do so much harm.
The state isn't suing Facebook for being a webpage — it's suing because Facebook told users they controlled their data while letting outside firms like Cambridge Analytica harvest personal information from roughly 87 million profiles, and New Mexico law lets the state seek a penalty for every user exposed to each misleading statement.
The $25 billion verdict treats a tech company's privacy promises as enforceable consumer-protection claims, which could change how every platform talks about data.
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- Cambridge Analytica got the data through a personality quiz app ('thisisyourdigitallife') installed by about 270,000 people; the app also collected data on their friends, reaching roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide. Facebook learned of the leak in December 2015 but didn't tell the public until 2018.
- The jury found 43,899,725 violations — one for each New Mexico Facebook user exposed to each of 26 misleading statements made by Meta and its leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, between 2010 and 2021.
- State law allows up to $5,000 per violation, which would have meant $219.5 billion; Judge Francis Mathew reduced it to $25 billion and added 15% annual interest.
- New Mexico was the only state to take its Cambridge Analytica claims to trial — the other states settled with Meta in August for about $17.1 billion, by comparison.
- Meta argues it does not sell user data and that New Mexico never proved any consumer was actually misled; its lawyers say the penalty is a 'tax on speech' that violates due process and the constitutional bar on excessive fines.
- Legal observers note the award is vulnerable on appeal because the state counted everyone who could have seen a misleading statement, not just users who saw it — Reuters reported that concern from lawyers familiar with the case.
- The numbers themselves are contested: the state asked for $35–40 billion, the judge chose $25 billion, and Meta said a maximum of $3.45 billion was warranted.
What I don't ever understand about these things is that everything that everyone puts on Facebook is meant to be made public, at least to their friends and their friends' friends (so basically public). What are the damages from this occurrence?
The damage was not that anything 'public' leaked — it was that Facebook promised users control over their data and then let an outside firm harvest data on about 87 million profiles, including millions of people who never installed the quiz app or agreed to anything, and sell it for political targeting.
Consumer protection law treats the false promise itself as the injury, which is how New Mexico counted 43.9 million violations instead of one breach — and produced the largest fine ever levied against Meta.
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- The app at the center of the case, thisisyourdigitallife, was installed by about 270,000 people, but its data reach spanned roughly 87 million profiles — nearly all of them people who never installed it or gave permission.
- Facebook publicly promised in 2014-15 to stop letting apps pull data from users' friends, but quietly kept exemptions for favored partners, and the judge concluded that promise that users controlled their data was false.
- Facebook's own probe linked at least 1,585 apps to data misuse touching at least 1,146,225 New Mexico accounts — yet the state says it never told those users.
- Cambridge Analytica used the harvested data for targeted political advertising, including work for the 2016 Trump campaign — use nobody consented to and most users learned about only in 2018.
- Meta argues the state never proved any New Mexican saw the misleading statements or was harmed, and that a $25 billion penalty is unconstitutionally excessive; legal experts told Reuters the verdict is vulnerable because the state counted everyone who might have seen a statement, not just people who did.
- FIRE, a free-speech group, says the verdict is fundamentally about speech — it penalizes 26 statements Facebook made about its own policies, multiplied by New Mexico's population — and argues that threatens honest corporate speech about content moderation.
Okay thanks for the explanation. It's clear now: it was a money grab by the state.
It's a penalty under a consumer protection law, not a simple money grab — but the way New Mexico counted violations is exactly what Meta and outside experts say makes the award unfair.
If it survives appeal, the verdict shows states can use per-person penalty math to force tech giants to pay enormous sums for deceptive statements.
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- New Mexico was the only state to take its Cambridge Analytica claims to trial; 48 other states settled in August for about $17.1 billion.
- The jury tallied 43,899,725 violations by counting each misleading statement against every Facebook user in New Mexico; the judge cut the maximum $219.5 billion penalty to $25 billion plus 15% annual interest.
- Under New Mexico's constitution, the money goes to state education spending; the attorney general said it could fund schools for 100 years.
- Meta says the state never proved any New Mexican saw the statements or was harmed, and argues the proper penalty was no more than $3.45 billion.
- Legal experts told Reuters the award is vulnerable because the state counted everyone who might have seen a misleading statement, not just people who did.
- Meta and some legal experts say the state inflated the penalty by counting every person who could have seen a statement rather than proving actual harm; the state says the misleading statements were directed at the entire New Mexico population, so each exposure is a separate violation.
- FIRE argues the verdict is fundamentally about speech and threatens Meta's ability to moderate content; the state says it is a consumer protection case about broken promises on data privacy.
Give me a break: $25 billion to one state? That's ridiculous.
The $25 billion is statutory math: a jury counted more than 43.9 million violations at a $5,000-per-violation cap, giving a $219.5 billion maximum that Judge Francis Mathew then cut to $25 billion — and that counting method is exactly why Meta and legal experts expect the award to shrink or fall on appeal.
This is the largest fine ever imposed on Meta, and it tests whether a state can price consumer deception by audience size rather than by proven harm.
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- The jury found more than 43.9 million violations of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act; at the $5,000 statutory maximum per violation, the top penalty was $219.5 billion, which the judge reduced to $25 billion with 15% annual interest.
- New Mexico counted every person who might have heard or seen 26 statements by Zuckerberg, Sandberg and other executives as a separate violation — for some statements, even people who never had Facebook accounts. Meta says no evidence shows anyone actually saw the statements or was harmed.
- New Mexico was the only state to take Cambridge Analytica claims to trial; 48 other states settled in August for about $17.1 billion.
- Under the New Mexico Constitution, the money goes to education. Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the verdict 'an unambiguous message' to Silicon Valley.
- Meta and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argue the verdict is fundamentally about speech: the state multiplied 26 statements by the number of people who might have heard them, regardless of whether anyone was deceived, which they say violates due process. Meta's lawyers argued the penalty should be no more than $3.4 billion.
- The state argued Facebook's false public statements deceived New Mexico's entire population, asked for $35–40 billion, and pointed to the jury's finding that the violations were willful.
