A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties for violating the state’s consumer protection law more than 43 million times.
Oct. 22, 2026 — A judge in New Mexico yesterday ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to pay $25 billion in penalties for more than 43 million violations of the state’s unfair practices act.
The judge’s order represents one of the largest financial penalties against a corporation in U.S. history, and a landmark victory holding a tech giant accountable under state consumer protection law.
It’s the largest fine levied to date against the social media giant, but it’s not connected to the ongoing social media addiction trials. (That’s a separate issue.)
In this case, a jury in Santa Fe found Meta liable for misleading state citizens about how it collects and safeguards user data, and prevents harmful information from flourishing on its platforms. The unfair practices violations occurred as part of the company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal from nearly a decade ago.
Caught lying to consumers about facebook data
In that case, the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, while working for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their consent. New Mexico had sued Meta, accusing it of lying to Facebook users in New Mexico about who had access to their data.
New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his decision: “The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act—$5,000 per violation found by the jury.”
"Facebook's wrongdoing—over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public—goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices," Judge Mathew added.
Meta’s net income in 2025 was roughly $60 billion. Judge Mathew’s order stipulates that interest on the penalty will accrue at 15% each year until the fine is paid off in full.
State law catches up to a tech giant
“For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in a statement. “This penalty order demonstrates that those violations carry real consequences. We took on one of the largest companies in the world because New Mexicans deserve honesty, accountability, and the protection of their personal information. Today’s result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable.”
This marks the second significant win over Meta for New Mexico’s state legal team this year. On March 24, 2026, a jury in Santa Fe found that Meta violated a New Mexico consumer protection law by failing to protect children from sexual exploitation and to disclose the dangers of its platforms. That earlier verdict came as part of the landmark social media addiction trials. We have a full overview of that issue here.
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