SANTA FE, United States — A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found that Facebook repeatedly misled state residents about how it handled personal data and addressed harmful content on its platform.
Judge Francis Mathew issued the order on October 21, following a September jury verdict that found 43,899,725 willful violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act. The case covers Facebook’s public statements about privacy, data sharing, misinformation and hate speech over more than 11 years.
The judgment is a major legal setback for Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. However, the $25 billion is a court-ordered penalty, not money the state has already received. Meta has said it will appeal, setting up a potentially lengthy legal fight over the verdict and the size of the award.
How the court reached $25 billion
New Mexico law allows courts to impose a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each willful violation of the state’s Unfair Practices Act.
Using that maximum for all 43,899,725 violations found by the jury would produce a penalty of about $219.5 billion. Judge Mathew’s order calculated that amount, then reduced the award to $25 billion.
The judge cited several factors supporting a severe penalty. They included the number of violations, the length of time the conduct continued, the range of subjects covered by the statements, the involvement of senior company leadership and the size of the audience reached in New Mexico.
The order also found that earlier penalties and agreements had not deterred the practices at issue in the case. The judge concluded that the company’s statements were not isolated mistakes but part of conduct that the jury found willful.
The final amount is still far below the calculated maximum. The order does not make the $25 billion immediately payable free of further legal challenge. It sets interest at 15% a year until the penalty is paid in full, while the case moves toward the next stage.
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What the jury found
The jury’s September verdict covered 26 public representations that it found violated state law. Those statements spanned the period from May 2010 through August 2021.
The findings included statements that users controlled how their personal information was shared and that Facebook did not sell or provide their personal information to advertisers. Jurors also found certain statements about the platform’s handling of misinformation and hate speech to be misleading.
The verdict did not mean that every allegation made by the state was proven. In particular, the jury did not accept every claim about Facebook’s removal of harmful content. The distinction matters because the penalty rests on the violations actually found by the jury, rather than every allegation raised during the case.
The judge’s order followed the jury’s findings and set the civil penalty. A separate question remains: whether the company must also change particular practices under a court injunction. The judge reserved that issue for further briefing rather than resolving it in the October 21 order.
How Cambridge Analytica fits into the case
The lawsuit grew out of the wider controversy over Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that obtained Facebook user data through a third-party personality quiz app. The data was used to build profiles for political advertising, including during the 2016 United States presidential election.
The episode became public in 2018 and raised questions about whether Facebook users understood how their information could be collected and shared beyond the platform. Federal regulators later imposed a $5 billion penalty on Facebook in a separate proceeding related to privacy practices and a previous Federal Trade Commission order.
New Mexico’s case drew on that history, but its claims were broader than the data-harvesting episode alone. The state also challenged Facebook’s public statements about privacy protections, misinformation and hate speech. The jury’s verdict addressed those specific representations under New Mexico law.
That distinction is important. The $25 billion judgment is not a new federal penalty for the entire Cambridge Analytica episode, nor is it the same as earlier settlements involving other states. It is a state court’s civil penalty arising from the violations found in this case.
Meta says it will appeal
Meta has said it disagrees with the judgment and intends to challenge it. Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney argued that the state’s approach threatens free expression and could make it difficult for the company to operate in New Mexico. He said Meta was confident it would prevail on appeal.
The appeal could challenge both the jury’s liability findings and the way the court calculated the penalty. A central legal question is whether the state can count violations based on the number of people who could have encountered public statements, rather than proving that each person saw and relied on a particular statement.
Meta has also argued that the penalty raises constitutional concerns, including whether it is excessive in relation to the conduct established at trial. The state, by contrast, argued that the scale, duration and repeated nature of the statements justified a substantial penalty.
The outcome remains uncertain. An appellate court could uphold the judgment, reduce the penalty, alter parts of the verdict or return issues to the trial court. The size of the award alone does not establish what an appellate court will decide.
As of October 23, no subsequent notice of appeal, stay or amended judgment has been independently confirmed for this report. Meta’s stated intention to appeal should therefore be distinguished from a verified court filing.
Where the money would go
New Mexico’s attorney general has said that money recovered under the judgment would support the state’s education system. The state constitution directs certain fines and penalties into education-related funds, although the precise handling of any eventual payment depends on the applicable legal and budgetary rules.
The timing is uncertain. An appeal could delay payment and keep the funds unavailable while the courts consider Meta’s challenges. The order’s interest provision means the amount owed could also change over time if the judgment remains in force and payment is delayed.
The case is separate from another New Mexico lawsuit over alleged harm to young people using Facebook and Instagram. In that proceeding, a court ordered Meta to pay $942 million and imposed additional protections for children. The two cases involve different claims and legal findings, even though both concern the company’s conduct in the state.
A major penalty, with more legal questions ahead
The $25 billion judgment shows how a state consumer-protection law can produce a large penalty when a jury finds millions of willful violations. But the ultimate financial and legal consequences remain unsettled.
The trial court has entered its penalty order, and the state says the money would benefit education. Meta intends to appeal, while the question of additional court-ordered changes remains open.
The next stage will determine whether the verdict and penalty survive judicial review. Until then, the award remains a significant but contested judgment—not a completed payment and not a final resolution of every issue in the case.
Reporting Credit: New Mexico First Judicial District Court — October 21, 2026, findings, conclusions and penalty order in State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms, Inc. New Mexico Department of Justice — September 25, 2026, jury-verdict announcement and October 21, 2026, penalty announcement. Federal Trade Commission — records of the separate 2019 Facebook privacy settlement.
