New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion in Facebook consumer-protection case

A New Mexico state judge on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, ordered Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook Inc., to pay a $25 billion civil penalty in the state attorney general’s consumer-protection case. District Judge Francis J. Mathew of the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe County entered the judgment in State of New Mexico ex rel. Raúl Torrez v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. D-101-CV-2021-00132.¹

How the court reached the amount

The judgment says the jury found 43,899,720 willful violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act through unfair or deceptive trade practices, plus five willful violations through unconscionable trade practices, for a total of 43,899,725. At the law’s maximum of $5,000 per violation, the court calculated a penalty of $219,498,600,000 on the 43,899,720 violations, then reduced it to $25 billion. Interest accrues at 15% a year until the penalty is paid. The court reserved injunctive relief pending more briefing.¹

The jury counted violations by audience, assigning each of the 26 statements it found unlawful either 1,386,648, Facebook’s New Mexico monthly active users as of June 30, 2020, or 2,100,000, roughly the state’s population. The statements date from May 24, 2010, through Aug. 18, 2021.¹

What the case is about

The case concerns what Facebook told the public, not child safety. The judgment groups the 26 statements into five subject areas: six on users’ control of their data and third-party access (10,459,944 violations); 10 on friends’ data access and the App Developer Investigation that Facebook opened after the Cambridge Analytica revelations of March 2018 (18,146,592 violations); two on misinformation; five on hate speech; and three on whether Facebook applied its Community Standards equally. The court’s findings on that last area cite Facebook’s “CrossCheck” review system for high-profile accounts.¹ The attorney general’s office calls it the state’s Cambridge Analytica case.²

A separate New Mexico case over Meta’s effect on young users produced a $375 million jury penalty and a $567 million court order earlier in 2026, the attorney general’s office said in August.³

Findings and the two sides

In its findings, the court wrote that Facebook’s statements about users’ control of their data amounted to “a systematic pattern of deception” and that during the app investigation Facebook notified users about only two apps. The court cited a private email in which Mark Zuckerberg wrote that users “probably don’t understand their current privacy settings.”¹

Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement that “no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable.” His office said New Mexico pursued the case on its own instead of joining a multistate settlement.² The suit was filed in 2021 under former Attorney General Hector Balderas, Source New Mexico reported.⁴

Meta Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said the ruling and the attorney general’s approach to enforcement “makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico,” and that the company is “confident we will prevail on appeal,” Axios reported.⁵ On proportionality, Meta cited its $5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement, the judgment says.¹ After the verdict, a Meta spokesperson said, “We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record.”⁴

The verdict

The jury returned its verdict on Sept. 25, 2026,⁴ after what the judgment calls a 13-day trial.¹ The jury sided with the state on 31 of 34 counts and rejected claims about statements on removing graphic violence and fake COVID cures, fact-checking, and posts promoting hate crimes or terrorism, Source New Mexico reported, citing the verdict form.⁴ Axios reported that New Mexico was the only state to take its claims to trial.⁵

What the records do not show

• The judgment does not explain how the court arrived at $25 billion as the reduced figure.¹
• The verdict form itself was not available to us; the counts the jury rejected come from Source New Mexico’s report.⁴
• No notice of appeal or ruling on injunctive relief appears in the records reviewed.¹