Meta Faces Potential Billions in Fines After New Mexico Jury Finds 43 Million Unfair Practices Act Violations
State attorneys general may use the landmark consumer protection verdict to accelerate parallel investigations into Big Tech data practices nationwide.
A New Mexico jury has determined that Meta Platforms violated the state’s Unfair Practices Act more than 43 million times, a verdict that exposes the social media giant to a maximum theoretical penalty exceeding $215 billion. The ruling marks one of the most severe legal setbacks for Mark Zuckerberg’s company at the state level and signals an escalation in how regional attorneys general are pursuing Big Tech accountability.
The jury found that Facebook systematically deceived New Mexico residents about its data-sharing arrangements with third-party advertisers, misrepresented its efforts to combat hate speech and misinformation on the platform, and failed to follow through on public commitments made after its internal investigation into the Cambridge Analytica scandal. State authorities argued that the company profited from harmful content while publicly claiming it was actively policing such material.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez pursued the case under the state’s Unfair Practices Act, a consumer protection statute designed to shield residents from deceptive trade practices. Under New Mexico law, each individual violation carries a maximum civil penalty of $5,000. With more than 43 million violations established by the jury, the presiding judge must now determine the actual financial penalty during the sentencing phase. Courts rarely impose the absolute statutory maximum across millions of counts, but even a fraction of the per-violation cap would result in a multibillion-dollar judgment against Meta.
The legal foundation of the trial traces back to the 2018 revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, harvested the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users without explicit consent to build voter profiling tools. Although Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy shortly after the scandal broke and Meta settled a related federal class-action lawsuit for $725 million in 2022, the New Mexico case demonstrates that state-level enforcement actions based on those underlying privacy failures remain active threats to the company.
Unlike the federal settlement, which compensated users directly, this verdict represents a punitive action brought by a sovereign state. Consumer protection lawsuits filed by state attorneys general operate independently of federal class actions, meaning previous settlements do not grant companies immunity from state-level prosecution for the same underlying conduct. This distinction has made state UPA laws a primary vehicle for regulators seeking to penalize technology companies where federal privacy legislation remains fragmented.
Meta intends to challenge the outcome. A spokesperson for the company argued that the jury’s decision infringes on First Amendment protections, asserting that the ruling improperly penalizes free speech and user expression on its platforms. The company plans to appeal, framing the litigation as an effort to distort its operational record. First Amendment defenses have historically presented complex hurdles in cases involving algorithmic amplification and corporate speech versus user-generated content, though courts have generally held that commercial deception is not protected speech.
This liability phase concludes just months after a separate New Mexico jury ruled against Meta in a different lawsuit. In that earlier trial, jurors found the company liable for designing features intended to foster compulsive use among younger demographics. Together, the two verdicts establish New Mexico as an aggressive venue for technology regulation, operating outside the traditional tech-litigation hubs of California and the District of Columbia.
Other state attorneys general are closely monitoring the financial penalty phase. If the New Mexico judge imposes a substantial fine, it will likely accelerate similar consumer protection investigations already underway in states including Texas, Massachusetts, and Washington, where regulators have been building parallel cases concerning data transparency and platform safety claims.
The presiding judge is currently reviewing briefing schedules to determine the final penalty amount Meta will be ordered to pay the state.
