Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25bn, AFP reports

AFP reported, citing media reports, that a New Mexico judge ruled on Wednesday that Meta must pay $25 billion to the state after a jury found last month that the company deceived users in a case linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Meta rejected the case as "a tax on speech" and said it was confident it would prevail on appeal. The company said the ruling made it "all but impossible" to do business in New Mexico.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez called the ruling a historic win. He said the case concerned whether corporations could mislead consumers about what happens to their personal information without meaningful consequences.

The penalty follows Meta's agreement a couple of months earlier to pay $18 billion to settle claims brought by 48 other states, including allegations tied to Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, including during the 2016 US presidential election. A personality quiz app installed by about 270,000 users also collected information on their friends, reaching roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.

Facebook learned in December 2015 that Cambridge Analytica had acquired the data but did not disclose it publicly until 2018, after a whistleblower came forward.