Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25B for deceiving users about privacy on Facebook
The judgement marks the largest fine ever against the owner of Facebook.
The judgement marks the largest fine ever against the owner of Facebook.
The New Mexico jury found more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection law. Attorneys representing the state are asking for the maximum $5,000 penalty per violation, or a total that could exceed $215 billion.
The litigation will deliver a guaranteed $296 million to Indiana and up to more than $419 million, Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement.
States including Indiana are seeking extensive financial damages that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion, plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram.
The ruling is another setback for Meta, which faces an avalanche of lawsuits from thousands of families of children harmed by social media.
TikTok, Meta Platforms Inc., Google’s YouTube and Snap Inc.’s Snapchat are facing more than 3,000 individual complaints alleging that their products are addictive and have harmed the mental health of children.
The jury awarded the plaintiff $3 million in damages and recommended an additional $3 million in punitive damages.
The decision comes as a blow to NetChoice, which has won court victories against identical digital identification laws in other states by focusing on their constitutionality.
The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act and failing to employ sufficient protections against online predators.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of plaintiff Lee Lawmaster, who said the investigator threatened to pursue legal action against him over certain Facebook posts.
There are thousands more cases waiting to be heard, with young internet users, parents, school districts and state attorneys general all seeking compensation and changes to how social media services operate.
The multimillion-dollar verdict will grow, as the jury decided the companies acted with malice, or highly egregious conduct, meaning they will hear new evidence shortly and head back into the deliberation room to decide on punitive damages.
Jurors heard closing arguments after six weeks of testimony from scores of witnesses that included local teachers, psychiatric experts, investigators, top Meta officials and whistleblowers.
A daunting stream of testimony and evidence has been presented over seven weeks in a New Mexico case that explores what social media conglomerate Meta knew about the effects of its platforms on children.
The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.
More than 100 Indiana school districts are suing social media developers Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Google for designing products that allegedly lead to addictive and harmful behavior by adolescents.
Taking the stand for the second day, Musk continued to double down on his assertion that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings.
The probe comes after The Washington Post investigated Homeland Security’s use of administrative subpoenas, a powerful but little-known legal instrument that federal agencies can issue without an order from a judge or grand jury.
The stock closed at $36.81 on July 8, 2022, when Musk tweeted he was abandoning the deal over the fake accounts issue. That’s 32% below Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share.
Zuckerberg’s testimony is part of an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children.