The Cambridge Analytica scandal returns: Meta faces a $25 billion 'reckoning' for our stolen data.

Meta Platforms has been ordered to pay $25 billion for misleading consumers about data privacy in New Mexico. The ruling follows a jury finding that the company misrepresented access to personal information. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez initiated the case, citing violations of consumer protection laws. This penalty is one of the largest ever imposed on a company by a state.

Almost ten years have passed since the scandal of Cambridge Analytica revealed the dangers of providing one's personal information via Facebook; however, now the parent company of this platform is subject to what appears to be one of the biggest fines ever issued to any business by any US state. The court order issued on October 21, 2026, requires the social network to pay a fine of $25 billion after a verdict was reached that the firm deceived consumers in relation to data privacy and other issues related to the platform.

This decision is related to a story of the controversy that started with Facebook's data gathering through the use of a third-party application.

This lawsuit was filed in 2021 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez. As reported by Reuters and The AP, the case was filed against the company due to the misleading representation about the accessibility of information by users and the management of harmful content on the platform, among others.

Meta has rejected all these claims and has vowed to challenge the judgment.

How the Cambridge Analytica controversy led to a new legal battleThe history of this issue goes back to the discovery that the British political consulting company, Cambridge Analytica, had received information from up to 87 million Facebook users via a third-party app.

The company was connected to political campaigning in the context of the 2016 US presidential election campaign of Donald Trump, thus bringing up the problem of the users' online privacy in the context of political online advertisements.

This application was collecting data from the users of the application itself, and at the same time, its access to the system of Facebook made it possible to collect some information about their friends.

However, New Mexico's case was not limited to data-related issues as described above.

According to the state, Meta engaged in making deceptive statements regarding third-party access, content moderation, as well as how it treats hate speech and misinformation.

Furthermore, the company was accused of leaving harmful information on its websites if such an action was beneficial for its business purposes.

At that, Meta refuted the arguments of New Mexico's authorities.

The firm stated that it does not sell personal data of customers and that the state could not provide evidence of consumers being misled. Nonetheless, according to Reuters, the jury reached a verdict on September 25, finding 26 out of 29 statements from Meta and its officials deceptive.

Why the New Mexico judge set the penalty at $25 billionThe magnitude of the stakes was due to how New Mexico had determined the violation of

consumer protection laws.

Jurors had found over 43 million violations based on the possible audience reached by statements that were considered misleading. In this regard, according to state law, each violation could have up to $5,000 in penalties.

At a hearing held on October 1, attorneys representing New Mexico were seeking a judgment of around $35-$40 billion. On the other hand, Meta is trying to convince the court to reduce the penalty to $3.45 billion, since anything higher would be considered too high and would deter businesses from doing business in the state.

According to Reuters, Judge Mathew Francis found that the maximum statutory calculation could have amounted to over $219 billion but reduced the penalty to $25 billion.

The monetary consequences of the scandal are far more than just the total sum stated above.

Raúl Torrez, an attorney general in New Mexico, said that the funds will be directed to the state's schools. The defence of Meta argued that this calculation wrongly multiplies the possibilities of people being affected by certain statements to millions of violations without proving that they have seen it.

As reported by Reuters on Thursday, some legal experts believe that there are chances for Meta to appeal the penalty. Meta will definitely appeal the decision of the jury.

A second New Mexico verdict puts Meta's safety policies under scrutinyThis privacy decision is just one of several legal defeats for Meta in the state of New Mexico recently. Another lawsuit by the state had been based on claims that Meta had misled consumers regarding the safety of teenagers on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The verdict came out earlier this year with the company being ordered to pay $375 million in civil fines.

After another round of hearings, the judge also ordered the company to pay $567 million into a state fund dedicated to the mental health of teens and to meet other conditions designed to make these platforms safer for teenagers in New Mexico.

All of them show what issues are now relevant for the company in question: it is connected not only to the way of working with personal data but also to the safety of young users.

Moreover, all of these cases show that it is possible to apply state-level consumer protection laws to accuse big technology companies of breaking them.

It is important to note that such a decision cannot be considered the reason why all other lawsuits concerning the issue of privacy would win. The effects of such a case would be connected with the appeals process and the assessment of the state's approach to counting violations.

For the users of Facebook, the latest case connected with the activities of Cambridge Analytica is another evidence that privacy settings and statements of the company are not everything.