GoKawiil
Tech News
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company committed 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection laws, each carrying a $5,000 penalty. The case centered on Meta's handling of the third-party app tied to the Cambridge Analytica data breach, along with its broader data privacy practices and misinformation policies. Meta says it will appeal the ruling.
A New Mexico judge ruled that Meta must pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices law tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The judge calculated the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation, totaling over $219 billion, before reducing it to $25 billion. Meta's chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said the company plans to appeal, calling the ruling an attempt to tax speech.
A widely circulated quote attributed to Mark Zuckerberg suggests he characterized Cambridge Analytica's data practices as nothing unusual, implying similar data harvesting was common industry practice rather than a unique violation. The remark, dated to 2017, has resurfaced without full context around the original scandal that saw millions of Facebook users' data improperly obtained.