Meta Ordered to Pay $25 Billion Fine in New Mexico for Deceiving Users, Five Times Previous Penalty

At a glance

A New Mexico court ordered Meta, the operator of Facebook, to pay about $25 billion (roughly 33.2 trillion won) in fines. The court said Meta broke its privacy promises and deceived users. The amount is five times its previous fine.

Key points

1. 1

   The court found that Meta promised users they could control their own data, but that promise was false.

2. 2

   The case stems from 2016, when a political consulting firm collected personal data from 87 million Facebook users without permission and used it for targeted political ads during the U.S. presidential election.

3. 3

   The court counted about 43.9 million violations by Meta. Charging a fine for each one would make the total much larger, but the court cut the final amount sharply.

4. 4

   Meta argued the fine should not exceed $3.4 billion, and it has said it will appeal the ruling.

Why it matters

The ruling shows how heavy the responsibility is for large tech companies when it comes to handling users' personal data.