A New Mexico jury has found that Facebook willfully violated state law nearly 44 million times, in a verdict that could expose the social media giant to a civil penalty of more than $219 billion.
In its ruling on Friday, the First Judicial District jury in Santa Fe that Facebook engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices involving the way it handled users’ personal data, misinformation and hate speech.
The ruling does not set the final penalty. That decision is now with First Judicial District Judge Francis Mathew.
Attorneys for New Mexico are asking the judge to impose the maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation. Based on the state’s calculation of nearly 44 million violations, the penalty could reach roughly $220 billion.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the money would go to a special state fund that will support educational needs for New Mexico schools and students.
The case revolved around Facebook’s representations to users about privacy and its handling of harmful or misleading content, with the state arguing that the company made promises about its platform that were not borne out by its own practices.
The jury sided with the state on 31 of 34 counts, according to the verdict form. State attorney Randi McGinn said some counts were combined, meaning the jury ultimately found against Facebook on 26 of 29 statements presented to it.
In their findings, jurors concluded that Facebook misrepresented or made false statements about users’ ability to control their data, the company’s efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech, whether its community standards were applied uniformly and whether it would conduct a thorough investigation after the Cambridge Analytica scandal almost a decade ago.
The scandal erupted publicly in 2018 after it emerged that data associated with millions of Facebook profiles had been obtained by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and used for political advertising. The New Mexico case grew out of the state’s investigation into Facebook’s handling of user information.
The jury did not side, however, with the state on every allegation, finding that prosecutors had failed to prove that Facebook engaged in unfair or deceptive practices over statements concerning the removal of graphic violence and fake COVID-19 cures, its fact-checking efforts to combat misinformation, and its handling of posts promoting hate crimes or terrorism following the 2017 white-supremacist attack in Charlottesville.
But the extent of Friday’s verdict represents another legal setback for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, in New Mexico. “This is a message that is unmistakable for Mr. Zuckerberg, Meta and well beyond that,” Torrez told reporters in Albuquerque after the verdict. “Anyone in big tech who thinks that they can mislead and misrepresent the way in which they do business in the State of New Mexico will not be tolerated.”
In 2021, then Attorney General Hector Balderas filed the lawsuit who decided to bring the case separately rather than join a multistate action against Facebook.
The trial began this month in Santa Fe, featuring video depositions from Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. Zuckerberg’s deposition focused in part on Facebook’s policies governing the storage and sharing of user data, while prosecutors also questioned the company’s approach to content moderation and misinformation.
The case is the third major courtroom clash between Torrez’s office and Meta in New Mexico this year. A separate jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in March after finding the company liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangering children. In August, a judge ordered Meta to pay another $567 million for measures addressing harms to young people, bringing the company’s financial exposure from those earlier proceedings to $942 million.
Meta has rejected the latest verdict. “We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record,” a Meta spokesperson said. The company said its platforms are forums for free expression and that it has a First Amendment right to manage them while protecting users’ information and giving them control over their data.
The latest case, State of New Mexico v. Facebook Inc., was brought under the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The trial focused heavily on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and questions over Facebook’s privacy and content-moderation practices.
