r/news • u/Embarrassed-Pace-755 • 6h ago
New Mexico Meta Ordered to Pay $25 Billion for Deceiving Users on Privacy
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/technology/meta-penalty-new-mexico.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KVE.TBM1.D_aQPDRidZKg&smid=nytcore-ios-share4.1k
u/clashrendar 6h ago
Pay $25 Billion to who?
I guarantee the users they deceived aren't getting much of that.
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u/WantCookiesNow 6h ago
It goes to the state of New Mexico, funding education.
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u/you-create-energy 5h ago
Nice, let's do this 49 more times
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u/LooseSeal88 5h ago
According to the article, 48 other states took a settlement and New Mexico just happened to have the balls to take them to court.
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u/totesandhose 5h ago
Ah but if it gets renamed to New America then that means they donât have to pay /s
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u/niceturnsignal81 5h ago
Don't give them any ideas...
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u/AskMeHowToLose 4h ago
I mean, wasnât it just last week at a rally that renaming New Mexico to New America was brought up?
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u/JcPeeny 4h ago
I think they were saying don't give them any ideas about how to avoid making any actual payments.
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u/AskMeHowToLose 4h ago
Yeah, and Iâm saying it sounds like they already have the idea. Theyâve known about this trial since the beginning.
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u/Brickman274 3h ago
I mean that was the point for Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico is protected, but the Gulf of America is fair game to drill and destroy. There's no laws protecting the Gulf of America
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u/Dorkamundo 3h ago
I wonder how long until Trump gets the idea to try to get New York changed.
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u/midnightgirlj 4h ago
This is literally just more of their made up culture wars. All of these racist and xenophobic EOs are going in the first 100 days of the next admin.
Pandering to racism just never gets old in this country though. Makes me sick.
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u/ABHOR_pod 4h ago
When you're a failure at almost everything, at least you can take pride in sharing the same skin color of some people who won in a rigged game.
I'm roughly the same skin tone as Mozart and Alexander the Great, that means I'm better than people who only share a skin tone with someone like Mansa Musa or Genghis Khan. /s
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u/Osiris32 5h ago
New Mexico just happened to have the balls to take them to court.
I mean, they eat big bowls of sauerkraut for breakfast and will shave your back for just a nickle!
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u/radicalelation 4h ago
No, no, the little bitty boy in the box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block from Jerry's Bait Shop (you know the place) was force fed sauerkraut, because it's good for you, until he escaped at the young age of twenty six and a half years old to the nickle-back shave nirvana of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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u/Xatsman 3h ago
Their liability isn't limited to the US either.
This is the big reason why Meta is unique among the big tech companies. They have some huge advantages given the data their platforms generate and they are a massively profitable ad service. But their operations have left them with an uncertain amount of liability that doesn't seem to be trending down.
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u/somethingtothestars 4h ago
It should be noted that NM allows all NM residents to go to UNM for free. This will do wonders for their system.
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u/SqueezyCheez85 5h ago
That's refreshing. It'll be knocked down to pocket change in appeals... but if it pisses Meta off, I'm all for it.
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u/J5892 4h ago edited 4h ago
pisses Meta off
Corporations aren't people. They don't have emotions.
This will barely affect anyone at the company.The only thing that I'm all for is the humans responsible going to jail.
edit: directing significant fines to education is cool, too. But jail for evil people is my preference.
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u/FriendlyEbb5662 3h ago
I promise you the billionaires who own these corporations do have very fragile egos and are frothing at these headlines as we speak. I wish they were doing it inside of a jail cell of course, but inflicting maximum emotional damage and making these autocrats embarrassed and flailing is a vital step to justice
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u/PastyPilgrim 4h ago
The entire annual budget for NM looks to be 11B so if the fine actually sticks, 25B would be an insane[ly] [good] infusion into the the NM education system.
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u/lightclubx 4h ago
I think that's larger than most states yearly budget. Good for them and hats off for their AG.
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u/FTownRoad 5h ago edited 4h ago
Reminder that the massive tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s were often redirected to lots of other things, including, tobacco subsidies for farmers.
So I expect this will build one mighty fine datacenter.
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u/doublethink_1984 6h ago
Ya how many users get this payout?
Am I getting a $10 check?
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u/Ohnomydude 6h ago
Right? The last time they had to pay out, I randomly got like 2 dollars.
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u/AgeBeneficial 6h ago
Wife and I both got like $280. Always fun to get money you werenât planning on at the expense of FB
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u/kapparrino 6h ago
Just like playing monopoly and getting a card with a reimbursement for something random.
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u/Kalkin93 6h ago
Damn. Almost makes me wish I still had a Facebook account. But nah. Fuck that
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u/AgeBeneficial 6h ago
Iâve gotten several $50-$150 ones from Instagram, Snap etc. I get so many class action lawsuit adds on FB so I apply for the ones that are applicable then forget about it.
Few months later, yippie!
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u/Clippton 5h ago
Meanwhile every time I am eligible for a class action lawsuit payout, I apply and never hear back.
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u/rabbitlion 2h ago
You have to learn to click the obvious scam links to be eligible for a payout... .
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u/FilmScoreConnoisseur 4h ago
None. The damages were awarded to the state of New Mexico to be used for education costs.
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u/Shadowthron8 6h ago
Know what would stop companies violating privacy way better than fines?
Imprisoning executives
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u/thejonslaught 6h ago
Until some very wealthy men spend the rest of their lives in a cell, nothing is ever going to change.
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u/Shadowthron8 6h ago edited 2h ago
Something all real life people will agree on and none of us believe will happen
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u/H0pefulUn1verse 1h ago
All the execs at meta 1000% deserve the absolute worst for their crimes against humanity.
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u/bluddyellinnit 2h ago
i know something else we could do with executives
not going to say it but it's right there in their name
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u/Memory_Less 6h ago
Jail time is due to these CEOs senior management, board of directors given how extensive the crimes have been for decades.
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u/nosmartypants 6h ago
The fines need to be a percentage of profits, they are just little slaps on the wrist otherwise.
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u/SuperTaster3 5h ago
This is apparently 50% of their yearly profit, so a substantial amount.
Still not the correct response. The executives who did this should be in jail. Nothing will change unless the bad actors are personally punished.
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u/joedenowhere 5h ago
They pay the penalty with their stockholders' money, even in a corporate structure (like Facebook) where the stockholders have zero possibility of taking over the board and changing the company's governance. It's a racket.
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u/PaxEthenica 3h ago
I don't think it shoukd be an "A or B" penalty. Executives go to prison for fraud, & 50% of yearly profits are seized.
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u/RpiesSPIES 3h ago
Profits? Maybe up that to revenue, at least. And the duration could be variable to cover the extent.
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u/Laringar 1h ago
Definitely needs to be revenue, because companies can otherwise use accounting tricks to make it seem like they have zero profit.
Regardless, companies won't stop their behavior until the fines are large enough to actually put them in the red for the year, otherwise they're just the cost of doing business.
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u/Reylun 5h ago
Yup, unless they get jail time it is all theater.
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u/joedenowhere 5h ago
Jail time for the offenders is the only way to convince other executives that what they're doing might be a crime instead of a business expense.
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u/Mother_Airline_6276 4h ago
Funny how fast they forgot about Madoff.
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u/CompetitiveArt9639 4h ago
Madoff robbed other rich people. They donât care about hurting the poors
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u/Scared-Handle9006 26m ago
Itâs just like that one woman who got rich by scamming the rich. She used shady tactics to try and secure her own funding (if I remember correctly, she secured a loan for a legit reason, but she misrepresented her assets and connections, kinda like a certain president, at least thatâs what is presented in the story) they found out, she spent time in prison and I believe she was deported. There was a Netflix series about it, Inventing Anna.
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u/MUDrummer 5h ago
Incorrect. It should be a percentage of revenue. Thats how GDPR violations work.
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u/talldean 5h ago
This is almost half of 2025 profits, which is quite possibly "more than all the profits made from New Mexican users, ever".
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u/joedenowhere 5h ago
Corporations slapped with big fines never pay most of the penalty amount. They "negotiate" with the state's enforcement agencies after the publicity dies down. A big announcement helps the AG get reelected, but it's mostly PR. There has been some research by law firms and business school academics on how much the government actually collects, but unlike the original penalty, the actual amount paid is usually not public information.
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u/123_Free 6h ago
Does 42% of their profits sound better to you?
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u/MeatCatRazzmatazz 5h ago
It should be 50% of their yearly revenue. Like others have said, profit numbers are famously malleable a-la "Hollywood accounting"
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u/Rude-Bus9737 5h ago
New Mexico AG is on a roll. Next stop, Zorro Ranch and Epsteinâs girlfriend the dentist!!!
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u/CyberSmith31337 3h ago
Everyone saying it should be a percentage of revenue, or commensurate, etc, is missing the point.
It should be prohibitive. Hit their warchest level of fine. They are breaking the law, and this is the key point, at scale, and knowingly.
$250bn fine. Make them feel it for years to come. It sends a much stronger message, akin to the way China slaps down companies and executives who try to cross the state. People can wipe off a $25bn loss in 2 quarters. Thatâs not a lesson; thatâs the cost of doing business.
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u/OkAccident9994 3h ago edited 2h ago
China does not stop at fines. In 2008, a dairy company in China added melamine to their products, because it looked like milk proteines in machines that measure the quality of the milk.
300 000 kids got sick, 6 infants died.
The Chinese government? Lined up the CEOs and responsible leadership, firing squad.
Chinese people still hoard weird shit like food for infants when abroad, or mails it home to relatives, it left a very deep scar in their trust in food security.
I looked into this after seeing my single male Chinese exchange student friend have piles of infant food at his place i visited. He was sending it home to his aunts, uncles and siblings and told me about it.
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u/CyberSmith31337 2h ago
Yeah, that sounds about right. Look at how they handled Jack Ma and Alibaba when he got too big for his britches. They essentially dismantled his empire. Thatâs how you send a message.
Meanwhile in America, we apply like $42mn fines on Wal-Mart via settlement for the dynamic pricing they swear they arenât deploying. Thatâs not even a quarter of a percent of a quarterâs revenue. They are absolutely going to do it again.
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u/ForwardAd4643 2h ago
$250bn fine.
The judge originally calculated a $219 billion fine but reduced it to $25 billion, not sure why. Said the maximum penalty of $5k per occurrence, times 43 million+ charges, was warranted ... then reduced it to ~$500 per occurrence anyway
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u/Laringar 1h ago
My assumption is that the judge was trying to proof it against appeal. By assigning a statute-supported large fine initally, then bringing it down nearly 90%, it's harder for Facebook to argue that the fine is facially unreasonable.
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u/Abhoth52 6h ago
When do I get 67 cents? Drop in the bucket and it matters not one damned bit.
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u/The1andonlyZack 6h ago
I mean, here in Illinois we got like 600 dollars over a couple payments for privacy stuff the past couple years from Meta. Nooooot tooo shabby.
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u/Abhoth52 1h ago
I could fill a cavity or two with that kind of money ... talking about my teeth sickos lol
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u/callmemerryss 6h ago
43 million violation tied to misleading users about their data and the $25B goes to New Mexico's schools not the people affected. Meta plans to appeal but this is a pretty loud message that privacy claims can't just be empty promises.
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u/MoonStache 6h ago
META made over $200B in revenue last year. Likely much higher this year. This fine is large but only amounts to ~12% of last years revenue. It's nothing in the grand scheme of things.
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u/Saneless 6h ago
60B in profits. That's a nice chunk to remove
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u/sjdlajsdlj 6h ago
Exactly. Why is revenue the number that guyâs looking at? Guyâs being cynical for cynicismâs sake.
This is also on top of a $17 billion dollar settlement they made in August.
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u/DillBagner 4h ago
I don't pay taxes based on my profits. Fines should be no different.
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u/twenty_three_three 5h ago
what does the August payment have to do with this one? The judge was authorized to fine as much as $220B.
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u/bannedagainomg 4h ago
He likely just pointed out meta have lost a lot of their profits this year to fines.
Probably wont matter in the long run either way tho
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u/21Rollie 5h ago
Profits counts their dumb expenditures like AI buildout though, which is not only optional, but bad for the world. They shouldnt get any tax writeoff or any other sort of benefit for that expenditure
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u/Friendstastegood 4h ago
How about if you lie to your customers/users you get fined all of the profits for all of the years you were lying?
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u/Losaj 6h ago
It's called "the cost of doing business" not "a fine for doing something wrong."
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u/Zwierzycki 6h ago
That was for New Mexico. There are 49 other states that will want settlements.
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u/LavenderBlueProf 6h ago
" the social media company had misled users about their data privacy"
NO SHIT WATER IS WET
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u/Fit-Let8175 5h ago
Out of curiosity, who gets the money every time some company gets fined for similar offences?
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u/bigstupidboy 4h ago
the state of New Mexico. it'll be distributed into the education and other public budgets. (fucking hopefully)
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u/Libinky 2h ago
Yeah who does get this money? Likely will be paid in installments over 200 years.
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u/RockYourAmadeus 1h ago
I think it goes; Lawyers, some state agencies, lawyers and lawyers.
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u/Radiant_Safe1228 2h ago
Well after all of the legal fees the remaining 25 dollars will go to part of the processing fee.
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u/northwoodsgirl 6h ago
In case you were wondering (as I was) there will not be individual payouts associated with this lawsuit. As a NM Civil case, any funds will be allocated to NM public schools/education spending.
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u/Junethemuse 5h ago
If this were distributed among every active user, weâd each get $8.14.
IF users get any, it would be more like $3 after lawyers take their cut and administrative costs.
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u/FunWrangler666 5h ago
Nothing will change until board members go to prison for their crimes
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u/the_eluder 4h ago
And companies get bankrupted for actions like this. Permanently put out of business.
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u/60k_Risk 6h ago
Meta is worth $1.8T. If you have $1,800 in your account, this is the same as you paying $25.
This is less consequential than you paying a speeding ticket, about 6x less consequential.
Cost of doing shady business.
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u/AudibleNod 6h ago
And they're not going to simply roll over and pay the $25. They're going to fight it. New
MexicoAmerica has another thing coming if it thinks it can just take away those hard earned billions from a poor front-row attendee of Trump's inauguration.46
u/throwaway11229887 6h ago edited 6h ago
If youâre gonna do comparisons, make them make sense.
Meta has $90B cash on hand (which includes more than just pure cash). If you have $1,800 in your account, this is the same as paying $500.
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u/Saneless 6h ago
You know they released how much money and profit they have, right? You don't need to make up something that is ridiculous
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u/_GregTheGreat_ 6h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah, comparing market cap to cash on hand is two completely different things. Them being âworthâ a trillion does not mean they have anywhere close to a trillion dollars. 25 billion is a genuinely huge fine
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u/Saneless 6h ago
These companies lay thousands of people off because their profits were only 12.3B in a quarter instead of 12.4. 60B is a very impressive strike to these terrorist orgs
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u/PopPalsUnited 4h ago
Itâs amazing how the actual users never see a dime of this and the states hoard it all.
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u/NYstate 4h ago
Non login in non paywalled version: WallHop | Meta Ordered to Pay $25 Billion for Deceiving Users on Privacy
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u/firmagorilla 3h ago
he'll just pick 1 bio from his back pocket and buy himself a bunch of senators
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u/jebei 5h ago
These states don't really care about fixing the problem. These are easy ways for them to plug holes in their budgets and companies like Meta don't care about fines. It's a cost of doing business.
The government needs to go back to how they did things in the 1980s when they put people in jail for abusing the public's trust. If a law doesn't exist then lawmakers need to pass one. I am tired of our elected officials doing things like this and pretending they've done something useful.
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u/Foxcooler 6h ago
Remember when journalists were calling it Metaâs âbig tobacco momentâ thinking litigation would break them apart?
Oh how naive
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u/Far_Negotiation_694 5h ago
What's that? 15% of 2026 profits? They are probably laughing their asses off on the way to the bank.
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u/Silent_Cup2508 5h ago
To get your $0.25 cent payment - please enter all your personal data and bank accounts. Donât forget to check the box to agree that Meta can use all your data for anything they wish.
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u/Slowmyke 5h ago edited 5h ago
Oh, the irony of the website requiring me to create a profile to read a story about the misuse of private data...
On topic, monetary fines are not enough in cases regarding user privacy. The damage is done to the user whether or not fines are levied or users receive checks. The data is already used, manipulated, sold, and leaked. A miniscule check doesn't return the data or make the various entities in possession of it suddenly forget it or stop using it.
There need to be consequences that the decision makers/executives actually care about. They need to see jail time. And instead of checks (i know the users aren't getting anything in this case) actual shares in the companies need to be given out without the ability to dilute in the future. The corporations need to actually care about the courses of action they take and the effects they will have.
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u/EmergencyJacket207 5h ago
That's it huh? Fines need to be a percentage of company profit or this will just keep happening as a "cost of doing business."
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u/B12Washingbeard 4h ago
Zuckerbot should be in prison at this point. Heâs been doing shady shit the entire time Facebook has existed and he is just as responsible for the brainwashing of society as Rubert Murdoch is with Fox Fake News.
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u/Fuck-Star 2h ago
Meta stock is up more than 2% after hours today.
If Meta's current market cap is $1.77 trillion, a 2% increase would add approximately $35.4 billion to its market cap.
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u/Beederda 6h ago
Paid to whom? Who gets that money? I was deceived! I want a cut give me my dollar! Lol
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u/pegasusandme 5h ago
This is great, but still a mere scratch. Meta's value is like $1.8 Trillion.
That's $1,800 Billion
Now minus $25 Billion and they're still holding strong at $1,775 Billion. Gross.
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy 4h ago
Yeah? And how much is my cut? When do I get my check? Or does it just go to the government to pay for Trump's stupid war?
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u/Formfeeder 3h ago
Good. Itâs about time that these scumbags are held accountable. Itâs a good start.
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u/O-parker 3h ago
They made 10x+ that breaking the law , 25b will just be considered a cost of doing business
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u/MyFirstCarWasA_Vega 1h ago
It is simple. The more you use META, the more they must pay you. Eventually, META will have to go out of business. There is no other fair way out of this other than the end of META.
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u/Quetzalcoatl490 1h ago
Know whats's better than a million dollars?
A billion.
Know what's better than a billion dollars?
25 billion donation because we actively deceivers users for decades and profiting from it.
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u/DMMMOM 33m ago
Meta needs to be taken down for Facebook marketplace alone. A total clusterfuck of a platform, ridden with scammers, crooks and thieves and they have zero interest in making it in the slightest bit a safe place to trade goods. It could be great but it's a cesspool of scumbags with no recourse.
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u/MonoBlancoATX 6h ago
This is less than half their average quarterly revenue and just over 1% of their total net worth.
IOW this ain't shit.
This is nothing more than a cost of doing business which means they will do it again and likely do much worse.
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u/Potential-Fan-6148 4h ago
I worked at Meta doing privacy engineering for 3 years.
They don't care internally in the slightest. Pure fucking evil.
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u/AcanthisittaNo6653 6h ago
Maybe Zuck could pay that in Meta stock for kids with trump accounts. We will never see a dime of it.
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u/Shadowthron8 6h ago
Unless people are sent to prison and the company is FORCED to have oversight then this will never stop