Meta fined $35.5b for 'lies' to users about privacy

Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been fined again its business practices.

A judge in New Mexico on Wednesday ordered the company to pay $35.5b, following a two-week trial earlier this year, where it was that found it had misled the public for years about how it dealt with user data.

"The lies extend beyond Facebook's data practices as well," the judge said, adding they went to "the heart of Facebook's core business practices".

In response to the enormous fine, Meta's head lawyer CJ Mahoney said the ruling made it "all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico". 

The fine is the largest to date against Meta, which has either been fined or agreed to settle several other lawsuits this year, including an $34bn deal with California over child safety.

Meta has alway disputed all accusations in all cases. 

The amount of the new fine represents that that jury found that Meta had violated state privacy laws more than 40 million times.

Judge Francis Mathew on Wednesday said he imposed the fine for an amount roughly equal to Meta's profits each quarter.

He said Meta's violations of law and misrepresentations to the public about how their Facebook data was used and shared were "willful" and spanned "more than 11 years", stretching from 2010 to 2021.

Communications between senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were "designed to mislead the public", Judge Mathew wrote in his order.