New Mexico jury finds Facebook liable for over 43 million violations of consumer protection law—and Meta could owe over $200 billion in penalties
https://fortune.com/2026/09/26/facebook-liable-violations-new-mexico-consumer-protection-lawand-meta-200-billion-penalties/
49 Comments
*“could owe”* is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. They’re a huge company and it’s 2026. Somehow they will get charged like $100,000 and asked please don’t do it again.
Of course I don’t agree with it, but time and time again shitty companies get off with minor slaps on the wrist whilst if any of us did it, we would be in prison.
Wow, a fine that actually sounds big enough to justify stopping instead of considering it the cost of doing business.
“If the state successfully persuades the judge to award the maximum civil penalties for every violation, the company could owe over $200 billion, with interest accruing if it decides to appeal.
The judge will decide on penalties during a hearing on Oct. 1. Attorney General Raúl Torrez told reporters following the verdict that all money awarded will go into a fund for the state’s education system. The state is also seeking an injunction to stop similar practices in the future.”
Come on judge, fine Meta $200 billion, they deserve it and this money will be better spent on education than data centres or pervert glasses.
Incoming $1M settlement
A bribe will make it 1 million and a slap on the wrist.
New Mexico lawyers are ripping people’s heads off. I’m here for it
“could owe”
But wont
The jury might very well award a $200 billion penalty. Then, in exchange for not appealing, Meta will pay no more than what is already in their budget for legal penalties.
Its headlines like this enables Meta et al to get away with this kind of stuff. A jury awards $200 billion, but in reality, Meta pays a tiny percentage of that and all of the attorneys involved get to buy a new house.
Bankrupt them
More free meta glasses for the blind vets is the best Zuck can do
We need to stop treating tech companies like everyone else. Break the law, get punished
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If corporations are people, why don’t they face “people” repercussions? A person made the decision that led to those laws being broken. We need to start seeing jail time, and it’s long overdue.
I’m pretty sure they’ve been violating consumers over in my state too
Fines need to be more expensive than any profit gain the company made from the violation.
I’m sure meta will pay the entire fine in a timely manner and change their questionable practices.
Want to change the world? Prison time instead of fines.
This thought occurred to me. If corporations are people, why can’t CEOs be brought up on criminal charges like parents of kids who commit mass shootings?
Spare the pedantry. Considering how bastardized our code of law is the argument could be made.
Could owe who? Because users will never see any of those settlements.
“could”, the most edging word of the 2020’s. Make “is” great again.
When this doesnt get paid I will happily site this as the reason I dont pay penalties. My whatever fee cant possibly be 200 billion and if that doesnt have to be paid than nothing I could possibly owe comes anywhere close. Thanks precedent!
For reference free cash flow (how much money Meta actually made) was a little under 50 billion last year. This year its fallen off a cliff, it was under 1 billion last quarter. Which requires some “creative” accounting, the real number is likely deeply negative.
So a settlement of 200 Billion, or even 50 billion, would require Meta to stop building data centers. Which I’m not opposed to…
That motherfucking billionaire should be in fucking prison already…I hate the god damned fines that are a cost of business….EAT THE RICH
And who will receive the money? Definitely not Meta customers
They won’t, they’ll settle with Meta for $20M and Meta will say they will take measures to correct the action – but nothing will actually happen.
Fucking A!
Now let’s do that in every state, country, and territory where META, X, TicTok, and others operate.
I think Meta would pack up and leave the market there before paying anything close to $200 billion lol
Hell will freeze over before they pay a penny of this cost
Fine that Mofo, he skated with the Cambridge Analytica crime.
Anyone want to take bets on if they play a 200 billion fine? I’m gonna say no.
Yea, if they pay more than 5 billion, I’ll be surprised
This is the first fine I’ve ever seen that actually feels like punishment instead of a slap on the wrist
Good, let’s see if they ever pay a dime.
More please.
Fineee, give META more tax incentives that will fix the economy. Jokes aside, META would never pay this money they will just find a loophole somewhere.
Will settle for $5m or even less or it won’t even go anywhere
Do it. Do it cowards.
> finds them liable
> could owe
aka nothing gonna happen
Yeah, that’ll never happen.
These kinds of fines get reduced dramatically step by step through appeals until they’re nothing but a rounding error. Don’t be fooled: there is no accountability in the US. Maybe there never was, but at this point we’ve voted multiple times to make sure there never is and never will be.
The education in New Mexico would suddenly become world class, and the facilities would be unmatched. I hope the judge gets fuckerberg for all he can.
If you look deep enough you’ll find they were running PSYOP operations and doing studies on how to make women cheat on their partners, So a lot of dudes had relationships that were perfectly fine that ended up getting destroyed by their so called research. Lives of innocent men just completely destroyed. They deserve to pay many times this.
Attornies or the state get all the money. You get nothing.
i’ll believe it when i see it.
although i’m still getting facebook money from some other group lawsuit
More jurisdictions need to be aggressively enforcing laws against these tech companies
If the TikTok store was held accountable for their deceptive sales practices that would probably be billions too.
You all know this will end up being like 15 million
Where would that money go?
Sounds like that could be truth. DOJ has no say as agent orange is pulling the strings.
Sue this shit out of them
with a B! finally something not to roll my eyes to the back of my head at