Santa Fe: A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay USD 25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found the Facebook owner deceived consumers, delivering another major legal setback over the company’s handling of personal information.

The order, announced on Wednesday, follows a September verdict in litigation linked to Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy that obtained information from millions of Facebook users without their consent.

New Mexico’s Department of Justice said the jury found almost 44 million violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The case examined Facebook’s statements about privacy, third party access to information and its handling of misinformation and hate speech.

Meta said it would appeal. Chief legal officer C J Mahoney criticised the decision and expressed confidence that the company would prevail. The payment order therefore faces a further legal challenge.

The original scandal exposed how information collected through an apparently ordinary application could reach far beyond the people who installed it.

A personality quiz called “thisisyourdigitallife” attracted about 270000 users but also gathered information about their Facebook friends. The collection ultimately reached an estimated 87 million users worldwide.

Cambridge Analytica used personal information for political profiling and targeting during the period surrounding the 2016 US presidential election.

Facebook learned in December 2015 that the consultancy had acquired the information, but the matter became a major public scandal in 2018 after a whistleblower came forward.

The scale of the collection raised questions about meaningful consent: many people whose information was obtained had never installed the application themselves.

The latest ruling also concerns what companies tell users about those risks. New Mexico pursued its case independently rather than joining a broader settlement, allowing its allegations to be tested at trial. The jury established liability, while Wednesday’s order determined the financial penalty.

The case adds to an earlier federal enforcement action. In 2019, Facebook agreed to a USD five billion penalty and new privacy obligations to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it violated a previous privacy order by misleading users about their control over personal information.

Meta has also faced separate proceedings over children’s safety. In March, a New Mexico jury imposed USD 375 million in penalties after finding the company liable in a case involving risks to children on its platforms.

An August order added USD 567 million and required product changes, bringing the combined financial penalties in that separate case to USD 942 million.

Those proceedings concern different conduct from the Cambridge Analytica litigation. Together, however, they show how privacy assurances and platform safety claims are increasingly being tested through consumer protection law.

The latest penalty is payable to New Mexico. It is not an announced compensation scheme for every Facebook user whose information was collected.