this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
387 points (99.7% liked)
Technology
89003 readers
2608 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So the $25 billion judgment is a judicial reduction from the jury award of $219.5 billion.
I also like this decision from the judge:
Meta will likely appeal, but not only does that not guarantee a reduction in the judgment, if they drag this out for years, New Mexico gets paid out even more.
would have been a better headline, tbh
Meh, I like the $25 billion headline because its the realistic result of the trial. Citing the $219.5 billion number in the headline would be clickbait because, while true with specific verbiage, it doesn't actually have any impact or expectation of that award actually occurring.
No, I mean more like "Meta to pay just 10% of original fine" - So people get an idea of how their judiciary system really works.
Even that would be clickbait though, because $219.5 billion isn't the "original fine", its the jury guidance. Its part of the sausage making of the justice system. The jury has a range of the fine per incident they can choose from to suggest a judgment. The judge then uses that jury guidance with additional info to determine the actual judgement. In this case $25 billion is the "original fine".
You're technically correct, but I still disagree with you on this. My reasoning is that I think the real story here is that meta has wormed its way out of being punished adequately, again.
This is where it becomes subjective. For some,Meta being "punished adequately" would mean the complete liquidation of the company and charges for executives in front of the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
A $25 billion award would be 41% of Meta's annual profit. That is substantial!
At least it's not just a slap on the wrist, but I like the sound of the first paragraph!
"You're correct but you weren't negative enough so I disagree"
I doubt New Mexico will ever see the money.
What are they going to do to actually punish Facebook for not paying?
Large corporations are somewhat immune from actual consequence these days.
Meta is building/operating the $3.3Billion Los Lunas Data Center in New Mexico.
That can change the situation on collection when the state has control where your billion dollar asset resides.
They can geoban Meta. Since pretty much who uses Meta services doesn't know how to use VPNs, there's a lot of pressure put on them.