A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after ruling that the company must face financial consequences for misleading Facebook users about how it handled their personal information.

The ruling, (issued Wednesday), follows a September jury verdict finding that Facebook violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws nearly 44 million times. The case dates back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when Facebook collected millions of users' personal information without their consent.

The penalty is the largest ever imposed against Meta, according to the Associated Press, and far exceeds the $5 billion fine Facebook received from the Federal Trade Commission in 2019.

But the case isn’t over. Meta plans to appeal, so the company may not have to pay the full amount. Here’s what happened and what it means for Facebook users.

The case began in 2021, when New Mexico sued Facebook, alleging it deceived consumers about privacy protections and how their personal information could be accessed and used.

At the center of the lawsuit was Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct political consulting firm that obtained information from as many as 87 million Facebook profiles. The data was collected through a third-party personality quiz and used to help target political advertising during the 2016 presidential election.

New Mexico argued that Facebook repeatedly assured users they controlled their personal information while failing to adequately explain how third parties could access it.

The lawsuit also challenged statements about Facebook’s efforts to combat misinformation, enforce community standards and address hate speech.

In September, jurors found the company responsible for 43,899,725 violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.

Each violation could have carried a penalty of up to $5,000, potentially putting Meta on the hook for nearly $220 billion. Instead, District Judge Francis Mathew set the penalty at $25 billion.

Even at that reduced amount, the judgment represents an extraordinary financial penalty for one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Meta disputes the state’s allegations and intends to appeal the verdict. During an October 1 hearing, the company’s attorneys argued that New Mexico failed to show consumers actually suffered harm from the statements at the center of the case.

Meta also challenged how the state calculated the number of violations, arguing that potential exposure to a misleading statement shouldn’t automatically count as an individual violation.

Its lawyers proposed a penalty of no more than $3.4 billion and argued that a substantially larger amount would violate constitutional protections.

The company has maintained that its privacy practices and content moderation policies have improved since the events at the center of the lawsuit.

For now, the ruling doesn’t mean Facebook users will receive compensation. Under New Mexico law, money collected from consumer protection penalties goes toward public education. The state is also seeking a court order to prevent similar violations in the future.

The bigger question is what the judgment means for the way Facebook handles personal information.

Although the Cambridge Analytica scandal happened years ago, the case highlights an ongoing concern for social media users: how much control do people really have over the information they share with online platforms?

Privacy settings can limit who sees certain information, but they don’t necessarily explain every way a company collects, processes or shares user data.

And while Meta has introduced new privacy tools and updated its policies over the years, the New Mexico case focused on whether the company’s earlier public assurances accurately reflected its practices.

Meta’s expected appeal could take time and ultimately reduce the penalty.

The court’s judgment also adds to the company’s growing legal challenges over privacy and platform safety.

In August, a separate New Mexico case resulted in a $942 million judgment against Meta over the safety of children on Facebook and Instagram. That ruling included court-supervised changes to the company’s platforms.

Meanwhile, the latest $25 billion judgment shows that legal consequences from the Cambridge Analytica scandal are far from finished.

For Facebook users, the immediate takeaway is just another reminder to review what information they’re sharing and who can access it.

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