New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced on 21 October 2026 that a court ordered Facebook (Meta) to pay $25 billion in civil penalties under the state’s Unfair Practices Act, in the state’s case arising from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
What the AG says happened
- In the first phase of trial, a jury found Facebook violated the Unfair Practices Act 43,899,725 times.
- The trial covered “the company’s statements and practices concerning user privacy, third-party access to personal information, and its handling of harmful content”. The state also challenged Facebook’s representations about its efforts on misinformation and hate speech.
- The jury’s findings established liability. The court’s later penalty order set the amount.
- New Mexico litigated on its own rather than joining a multistate settlement.
The jury’s findings established liability. The court’s subsequent penalty order determines the financial consequences of that conduct under New Mexico law. — New Mexico Department of Justice, 21 October 2026
Why it matters beyond New Mexico
The theory here is consumer deception: a company is liable for what it told users about privacy and moderation, rather than being regulated for the speech itself. This is a different route from Canada’s online-harms bills or the EU Digital Services Act, and other state AGs can copy it.
What this piece refuses
We could not retrieve the court’s penalty order. Every figure here is attributed to the Attorney General’s release. We do not report Meta’s response or appeal plans, because the release does not include them and we have no Meta statement. We have not used the interest-rate figure reported by some outlets, because it does not appear in the release.
Bottom line
According to the New Mexico AG, a court has set a $25 billion penalty after a jury found 43,899,725 Unfair Practices Act violations by Facebook. We have not seen the order itself.
