Meta ordered to pay $25B penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case
cnbc.com198 points by cbg0 4 hours ago
198 points by cbg0 4 hours ago
https://nmdoj.gov/press-release/the-new-mexico-department-of...
Sure, but where's the jail time for executives. This may be a bit more than the usual slap on the wrist, but its hardly consequence that actually matters to the likes of Meta. This will keep happening until those at the top are held personally responsible for the crimes they sign off on. > where's the jail time for executives Our American obsession with jail is nuts. The violation at hand was “misleading state citizens about how it safeguards and collects user data.” Lots of folks at Meta should be criminally investigated. But not for this, not unless someone willfully signed off on a lie. > This will keep happening until those at the top are held personally responsible Perfect is the enemy of the good. No one will bother making a move on the execs until the get-out-of-jail-free cards they bought from the current president are no longer valid. If only software engineers were liable like real engineers are "But my boss told me to increase engagement at all costs, including substantially increased rates of teen suicides, so shrug guess I have to since my visa will be revoked otherwise and I need this cash to send home to my family." Even when you cannot get highly employable US engineers to agree to do unethical work, you can always import some indentured servants who are too vulnerable to feel like they can say no. I know someone that took a job at meta short term to get cash for a family member with cancer. Go after the mob boss, not the workers trying to survive a deeply fucked up system. For those who haven't seen, the New Mexico Attorney General released tapes of the depositions for Zuckerberg [1] and Sandberg [2]. Meta will surely appeal, and will likely get the fine reduced to like 10% of that. But for comparison, in the recent multistate settlement over social media addiction by 47 states for $17 billion, there was a provision in that settlement to get $459 million [1] in exchange for releasing Meta from any state claims related to Cambridge Analytica. So those 47 states got $459 million for what New Mexico will likely get a few billion for. [1] https://www.techpolicy.press/the-459-million-cambridge-analy... It’s hilarious that one of the outcomes of Meta cozying up with the current administration to escape scrutiny at the Federal level has been 50+ state attorneys general prosecuting them instead. All the states that participated in the class action settlement got $725 million combined. New Mexico decided to go it alone and gets $25 billion. Great timing for the AG who’s up for reelection on November 3 (even though it was the previous AG who made the call). >New Mexico decided to go it alone and gets $25 billion. No because that's still subject to appeal, unlike the settlement. "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush", etc. That’s all framing. If they use the win for their reelection campaign…they just won’t mention the appeals process. What are the grounds for the appeal? How does NM law look on that issue? It's a significantly reduced judgment too. Like, yeah, you have a point in the abstract, but barring any actual supportive facts, it doesn't seem like a good point. IANAL, but it's not hard to find answers with a trivial search, eg. https://kieferandkiefer.com/understanding-how-jury-verdicts-... https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/R331... It's not a jury verdict, and I am a lawyer... Also, a paper from RAND from 1987? Are you for real? It's a very good point. The further upon appeal Meta goes, the more removed they get from a jury and they'll be more likely to get a favorable ruling due to the company's negative approval rating amongst the public It's not a jury verdict. Crazy how much that needs to be repeated in this thread. I remember long ago, you could fully hide your profile from ANY type of search. Now you cannot. I also remember long before they started scanning your face, they added an opt-out checkbox, I'm pretty sure this disappeared for a long time. You know that feature where they'd auto-suggest who to tag? Yea, you could bar them from using your face for that, now Facebook has taken a steaming pile of... on your privacy at levels I've never seen them pull before. > I remember long ago, you could fully hide your profile from ANY type of search. Now you cannot. Do you have any more details on that? Are you talking about searches within Facebook or outside of it? I also remember long before they started scanning your face, they added an opt-out checkbox, I'm pretty sure this disappeared for a long time. You know that feature where they'd auto-suggest who to tag? Yea, you could bar them from using your face for that, now Facebook has taken a steaming pile of... on your privacy at levels I've never seen them pull before. Do you have any more details on that? Yes, I remember an article in the Guardian about this, around 2015-6 Facebook does this. People think 'privacy' as a complaint and perhaps think about advertising on FB but straight up, settings get reset (including posts suddenly becoming Public. or graph search.) Why? Because Mark Zuckerberg does not believe in it. In 2010 he said privacy was no longer a social norm. Not only does he himself not believe in it, but he can't keep it to himself. He knows 'better than you'. So, he outright changes it himself or instructs his engineers to do it It's like with Free Basics in India. You could, theoretically, support it. Many didn't, it was a form of digital colonialism. But let's say you happened to think it was a good idea. It didn't matter either way: Facebook sent emails on users' behalf to TRAI That's who Zuckerberg is. A sociopath, a criminal, someone who knows nothing but how to steal 25B is not a small fine. Finally an amount that should make them think twice their harming decisions They don't care. Meta can take the hit by either selling stock, laying of more employees or both to cover that cost. Or they can put thick mitts on Zuckerberg's hands for a couple of years so he can't sign any checks. 12% of annual revenue (~200B for 2025). Not a small amount. You mean 200B? meta makes $1.4B/week in net profit, so that's about 4 months of net profits Holy! This might be the first time I've seen a meta fine that actually feels substantial enough for them to change behaviours. That's impressive. That's just New Mexico. I wonder when will the other states step up, and hit them with more fines? Stock seems to have shot up ~7% aftermarket so just cost of business. They beat revenue expectations, and earnings per share was ok, and they guided for even higher revenue next quarter above estimates ofc. Somehow Meta is making money despite starting to loose DAUs now. So honestly I don't quite understand what's what, also most of the big income is from Ads and biggest Ads spenders are startups and companies heavily dependent on VCs and AI... So it's definitely somewhat circular, and Ads is the most recession affected business so a down turn in markets will cycle through it. But ngl if all the earnings are this ok then hyperscalers stock might not crash this quarter, well then again I didn't think they would but a person could dream. I am quite bullish on AI, but would prefer the fluff to get out of the way asap, otherwise don't want it to happen at a bad time, and too many people get caught pants down. Hell didn’t they stop even reporting DAU’s? they now do something called, Meta Family daily active people, similar thing but aggregate of all Meta stuff. very sus imho. Well Meta is reacting to all the costs by just starting to charge for things previously free, like sharing links. I suspect they are now entering the Earthlink/AOL phase where they squeeze every last dime out of the confused and abandoned senior citizens left on the platform until they die off. Meta also owns the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 14th largest social media platforms behind facebook. 3.6 billion people use a Meta app every day - 43% of the world's population. True. But seeing them lose an arm would be proof the monster can be killed. I'm saying I don't think we'll see that. Yes, many people I know have left facebook but I think that's an artifact of me being in a bubble rather than it being a global trend. Escaping litigation with a fine is always a good outcome, no matter how large the penalty. Stock price will drop the day governments start regulating these companies or breaking them up. I've always been fond of the idea of putting a corporation in "jail" where any presence they have is shuttered for the duration, bank accounts are frozen, and locations are to be uninhabited except by third party security. They can hire lawyers to argue it out while they sit in limbo like the rest of us. Imagine if Amazon ran afoul of the law and AWS was offline in corporate jail for a day? It'd be motication to never, ever risk that happening. People are not notifying this nearly enough, but Meta is still going up and at it in Brazil [1] during one of the most polarized elections I've ever seen during my time. Things got so ridiculous that Meta's AI WhatsApp companion would let you generate one candidate's posters, but flat-out deny you the same prompt for the opposition. Of course the bias skewed heavily towards benefiting the alt-right, pro-MAGA party. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l... Thanks for continuing to talk about this. It's ridiculous how much the US meddles in the elections of others and acts all :surprised-pikachu: when Russia sorta kinda meddles a bit in ONE election of their own. The Bolsanaro family is ofc a close ally of Trump https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/21/battle-meta-al... We even have Meta employees calling the meddling out: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/16/meta-employees-... A good start, yet still far from enough - as long as the punishments are not equal to their revenues generating by these illegal methods , big corporations will never stop exploiting society because to them those fines are just 'the cost of doing business'. > as long as the punishments are not equal to their revenues generating by these illegal methods I would say this qualifies no? They certainly didn't get 25 Billion in fees from Cambridge analítica. Unless they did any my conception of business is just way off. We need every state doing this, until it literally kills them. Then the companies left will have true fear for the first time ever, and may be forced to reform or suffer the same fate. Make an example of Meta for the ages. This seems to be a consequence of the Cambridge Analytica. Could it be that we'll see some consequences? Honestly, this company is uninvestable if you have even a shred of morality.. but, even if you lack morality, you must see the writing on the wall re: their lingering risks. Meta is the cigarette company of the modern era and if our historians are allowed to write a neutral take on this era, they will likely not be kind to meta. 25 bil is no where near enough for privacy damages, let alone what they'll have to deal with on the addiction damages down the road. New Mexico DOJ release: https://nmdoj.gov/press-release/the-new-mexico-department-of... If they actually pay $25B, I'll eat my hat. Hell, I might even eat two of my hats > While the full amount of the penalty against Meta, based on thousands of violations of state law, was calculated as $219bn, Judge Mathew reduced the penalty to the $25bn fine. umm when a thief steals and gets caught, we don't just punish them. We also recover what was stolen. They should also be made to delete all user data collected during the period, and pause similar data collection for x months/years even the ones that fall under their service terms. The price of wrong doing should be high, and for meta deleting historical user data is the highest form of punishment . Otherwise it's just cost of business. Are you proposing that as part of this settlement, Meta should have to delete the posts and likes and facebook accounts of users in New Mexico? They will likely not even have to pay $25B bc they will continue to appeal till they get a more favorable ruling The Cambridge Analytica "scandal" is basically an advertising campaign for Meta itself. Their ad platform worked exactly as designed: it allowed creepy, microtargeted advertisements. Instead of dish soap, peptides, and dropshipped garbage, it sold a political candidate. Much worse is how Meta enabled a genocide in Myanmar. >Their ad platform worked exactly as designed: it allowed creepy, microtargeted advertisements. Instead of dish soap, peptides, and dropshipped garbage, it sold a political candidate. No? The scandal was that random "apps" (eg. quizzes) were able to scrape user and their friends' profile data. The expansion of that into ad targeting as a whole is just a retcon you're doing. > In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for political advertising without informed consent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... Yes? They used Facebook APIs in conjunction with their own data points. This is basically all of "ad tech." > Much worse is how Meta enabled a genocide in Myanmar. True, and considering the gravity of this situation, you'd think they're would've been more legal consequences for FB/Meta I see similar dynamics happening on X, where it is just being used to spread hate and division. Perhaps it's high time we had an international criminal justice system for social media companies. Ad campaign? We are lucky they didn’t make the settlement in “Meta Quest Cash” or “Ad Buy Credit” Yeah it is kind of sad how not stopping posts which fueled a literal genocide is hardly glanced at but Cambridge Analytica is considered a disaster of the highest order. Who died from Cambridge Analytica? Previously when the EU has ordered US companies to pay penalties of a "few billion EUR" for trade abuse there has typically been a lot of jingoistic outrage here. This one will be interesting to watch. America fines their companies left and right but won't allow other countries to do for the same wrongdoings. Its very easy to understand the motives but other countries lack back bone to ban these companies How much is Cambridge Analytica going to have to pay? I'm all for ramming Meta, but I feel like they should be forced to pay the same amount. $0. for better or worse, they have ceased operations and declared bankruptcy. I don't think NM would/could expect to get any money from a penalty. I may misunderstand how penalties and bankruptcy work, but I would expect it's been a better use of time to try to get $$$ from Meta than a defunct entity. The original fine was much higher. This is closer to Meta’s hopes than the peoples. So apropos of nothing remember when Zuck bought a castle rather than spend that money on any sort of Facebook account support? i hate that zuck has his ad empire funding all sort of stupid shit. Nothing can even touch him as long as ad dollars keep flowing. why are ads so so sucessful on meta platform. i hate it so much. I still find it wild that Instagram does not share ad revenue with creators. Post something there that goes viral? You'll get nothing by default. (Of course, you could set up ad deals etc etc etc, if canny could could make money from it ultimately, but from all that traffic and all those ad dollars Instagram gets from it, you'll not get a cent.) Ads are successful everywhere. The size of facebook's userbase helped its ads reach a lot of people, but the number of facebook users has been declining while the old folks staying on the platform grow ever closer to death. Facebook has done nothing but demonstrate that it's a company which doesn't care at all about its users and is willing to hurt them. Anyone still using facebook at this point is pretty much asking to be taken advantage of and abused. I rally can't feel bad for them anymore. > the number of facebook users has been declining while the old folks staying on the platform grow ever closer to death They don't mind; it's a targeted market fit. They have Instagram and WhatsApp for other demographics. True, but while they're all suckers, some suckers are bigger rubes than others.
The elderly are a very easy target for manipulation. I think roblox might be the only platform with less savvy prey. > why are ads so so sucessful on meta platform Because you look at them. Get off their platforms. Jury based punitive damages are constantly overturned because they are not legal experts and don't understand anything. Anyone who thinks Meta will actually pay this amount have no clue what they're talking about. The article says this was a statutory $5k per infringement * 43M counts, then reduced by the court. This was not a jury award. We need tort reform in the US. These nuclear verdicts are causing insurance prices to go up. I forget the statistics, but I'm pretty sure every American citizen is paying a $500 to multi-thousand dollar tax because of giant lawsuits like this. Nowhere else in the world has this problem. Lawyers have too much power with politicians. Yea, that's the problem here, not the (illegal) wanton abuse and manipulation of user data and privacy by Meta and other companies. Original reward was 200+ billion, lawyered down to 25, on appeal I imagine much less. Cost of doing business for Meta and nothing changes. In cases like this, it should cost the company serious financial harm. Even $25 billion is nothing to Meta. If Meta is able to insure themselves from the cost of their illegal business practices that, so they have no incentive not to do this, and end up costing everyone money on their insurance... yes that is a problem, not to say what meta is being punished for isn't a problem. Surely you realise that no insurance company will continually indemnify a company which knowingly and repeatedly breaks the law, resulting in losses to the insurance company? Surely you understand that this isn't how insurance works? The penalty was not damages, it was a statutory per-count penalty. This was not a tort case at all, and tort reform has nothing to do with it. Or Meta could not break the law. It's just that easy. I support the death penalty for corporations. We need to hold shareholders responsible for the actions of the companies they own. I get why there is a certain level of immunity, especially historically. We wanted people to be able to invest money and not have to be experts on the politics and workings of the companies they were investing in. In the modern era of having detailed information about the board members, other major shareholders, executives, shareholder reports, etc all at your finger tips, you should have to weigh how ethical and responsible a company is before investing. It needs to be "priced-in". A $25 Billion dollar judgement against Meta might hurt profits a bit, but if that $25 Billion was paid in dividend claw backs or liens against stock... Same goes for any business venture including private equity. No more corporate veil. Every dollar or stake in ownership needs to be attributable back to an individual that can be held financially responsible. Each individual can have some amount of assets protected from claw backs, liens, judgements, etc. Enough to cover a functional used vehicle, 3 bed two bath house in their zip code, 50k in cash, and their retirement account. This gives most normal people the freedom to invest with less worry. Still, if you want to make money, it will behoove you to not take on risk by investing in organizations that flout the law, cause environmental damage, or harm others. I support the licensure of boards of directors and CEO types, and enforcement of laws against the people who control companies. If the CFO commits a crime, they can't get a license anymore. Start getting the bad actors out of positions of power. Licensing isn't the problem; simply prosecuting white collar crime is. No one wants to do it, especially the federal government, because they don't want to drive away companies to other countries. But tort law makes it easy and profitable for them to do so. Change the law, it just that easy. Why would American taxpayers be paying more because of a settlement against a private company? Shouldn't this contribute to the tax take, causing taxpayers to pay LESS? That's because 47% of the Senate are attorneys/former practicing attorneys. Need more ex-Scientists in office. :) No one is stopping them. There's no requirement that you be a lawyer. And lol, what a crazy idea... a lawmaker studying lawyering?! What a scam! Just pointing out that congress has a lot of attorneys, and the OP was complaining about all the pro-attorney legislation. Don't know why you think there's not correlation. Other countries don't have this problem because they enable and expect regulators to proactively enforce compliance. In the US this is largely considered anti-business, so we let companies do whatever they want and don't take action until after they do something wrong. And breaking the law usually doesn't result in a hit to next quarter's earnings, so this is what we optimize for: kicking the can down the road until it becomes a bigger problem. Other countries don't have this problem Guess how we know you've never lived, worked, or read a newspaper in any other country. Please note, those aren't my words but a response to the strongest plausible interpretation of the comment I'm responding to. (ie. it's hyperbole, meaning "the US relies heavily on torts to enforce consumer privacy compared to other countries") Privacy law in the US is largely toothless and has vanishingly few proactive regulatory requirements. This case is a perfect example of this -- Facebook's blatant disregard for privacy wasn't what was found illegal here, it was only the fact they lied about it. Who predicted it would be New Mexico defending the children of the US while seemingly every other state in the country is bought and paid for by pro surveillance capitalism lobbies? Hopefully those corrupt politicians are paying attention to the NM model and realize they can get more money by beating all the cash out of Meta like a piñata and then regulate the entire industry like casinos and tobacco, with super high taxes and exclusive for really stupid consenting adults only. I have no idea about judicial system in New Mexico, but it's a curious state - college is free effectively for everybody in the state, for example. Also school lunches are free. It's a rare combination of poor and blue. That amount will likely be reduced upon appeal ... Facebook IS a steaming pile of... and Zuck is PUBLIC ENEMY #1 I think Facebook is fine? It's where most neighborhood/city groups seem to be, and it works as expected for this. Marketplace is also pretty good, with less scams than other similar platforms. There is a whole gang of public enemies in Silicon Valley. And I hope they are afraid, and having board meetings to try to self regulate a bit to try to avoid similar pain.
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