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Judge Francis Mathew, who oversaw the trial in Santa Fe, will decide how much Meta must pay in financial penalties.Attorneys for Meta and New Mexico clashed at the hearing over how much was appropriate to order, with Meta arguing that the penalties the state was seeking don't match the conduct the state focused its case on at trial."Well, when the parties go to trial, they roll the dice," said Mathew.
"They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?"The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused Meta of lying to Facebook users in the state about who had access to their data, how the company handles hate speech and misinformation posted on the platform and other internal policies.
The company knew that third parties had broad access to users' personal data, and it tolerated hate speech or other harmful content when it benefited the company's bottom line, the state said.Jurors examined 29 statements made by the company and its leadership on those issues and found 26 of them misleading.
They said the company had committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws, based on the number of Facebook users or New Mexico residents who were the audience for each misleading statement.Attorneys for Meta had argued at trial that the statements were cherry-picked snippets, and the company had repeatedly acknowledged its handling of misinformation or privacy issues was not perfect.State law allows the judge to decide….
She said $35 billion to $40 billion, which represents about 20% of the possible penalties that could be awarded under state law from the verdict, would impact the stock price while complying with Meta's right to due process under the Constitution.At the hearing on Thursday, Matt Nicholson, a lawyer for Meta, called the state's request an "astronomical penalty that would obviously violate a host of constitutional provisions."In court filings, Meta….
The jury may have said it found Meta’s statements misleading, but the evidence shows that Meta does not sell user data and New Mexico did not prove that any consumer had actually been misled, the company said in court filings.The judge said he expected to issue a ruling later this month.The case is State of New Mexico, et. al., v.
Meta Platforms, Inc., case number D-101-CV-2021-00132 in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico.
Meta and New Mexico clashed over penalties, with Meta saying the state's demands exceed conduct proven at trial.
