Meta Made 43M Misleading Statements, New Mexico Jury Finds, Including on Its Cambridge Analytica Response (santafenewmexican.com) 30
A New Mexico jury on Friday "found Facebook liable for deceiving users" about its privacy protections, reports the Associated Press.
A New Mexico newspaper calls it "another massive legal victory" against Facebook, reporting that the jury found Facebook "had committed tens of millions of violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act in connection with its lies to consumers about how their personal information was handled by the company and third-party users." The state has asked the company be ordered to pay the maximum civil penalty of $5,000 per violation meaning a judge could potentially order the company to pay billions in penalties to the state. The jury also found the company had been dishonest about its investigation of and response to the 2013 Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, in which approximately 300,000 Facebook users took an online personality quiz, only to have the app that hosted the quiz harvest data from tens of millions of their "friends." The data was then transferred to the British consulting firm, which used it to create targeted political ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
More details from Reuters: The verdict followed a two-week trial over a lawsuit filed by New Mexico's attorney general in 2021, three years after news reports revealed that the firm, Cambridge Analytica, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app... At a press conference after the verdict was announced, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the case revealed "in stark detail the way in which this company plays fast and loose with the rules."
Jurors found 26 of 29 statements identified by the state were misleading, including comments about user data... Judge Francis Mathew will now determine civil penalties after jurors found more than 43 million violations, based on the number of people affected by the company's misleading statements... [New Mexico Attorney General] Torrez said his office is evaluating how much to seek but will push for the maximum penalty based on the jury's findings. The state will also ask [Judge] Mathew to direct Meta to make changes, which could include corrections to its past misstatements as well as an audit of the way it manages user data, Torrez said.
A New Mexico newspaper calls it "another massive legal victory" against Facebook, reporting that the jury found Facebook "had committed tens of millions of violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act in connection with its lies to consumers about how their personal information was handled by the company and third-party users." The state has asked the company be ordered to pay the maximum civil penalty of $5,000 per violation meaning a judge could potentially order the company to pay billions in penalties to the state. The jury also found the company had been dishonest about its investigation of and response to the 2013 Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, in which approximately 300,000 Facebook users took an online personality quiz, only to have the app that hosted the quiz harvest data from tens of millions of their "friends." The data was then transferred to the British consulting firm, which used it to create targeted political ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
More details from Reuters: The verdict followed a two-week trial over a lawsuit filed by New Mexico's attorney general in 2021, three years after news reports revealed that the firm, Cambridge Analytica, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app... At a press conference after the verdict was announced, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the case revealed "in stark detail the way in which this company plays fast and loose with the rules."
Jurors found 26 of 29 statements identified by the state were misleading, including comments about user data... Judge Francis Mathew will now determine civil penalties after jurors found more than 43 million violations, based on the number of people affected by the company's misleading statements... [New Mexico Attorney General] Torrez said his office is evaluating how much to seek but will push for the maximum penalty based on the jury's findings. The state will also ask [Judge] Mathew to direct Meta to make changes, which could include corrections to its past misstatements as well as an audit of the way it manages user data, Torrez said.
Oh wow (Score:4, Funny)
Thank goodness I was sitting down for THAT bit of news...
Potentially order the company to pay billions (Score:1)
potentially order the company to pay billions
That's one way to deter a move fast and break the law culture. :-)
Re:Potentially order the company to pay billions (Score:4, Insightful)
"potentially" - don't worry, the fine will be .001% of the total profit for one year as is the norm for these types of trials. The lawyers will get rich, a little left over for the State, and nothing for the peons, you know, the ones actually affected by this.
Re: (Score:2)
who runs a social network, Roy.
And these trumped up charges,
some nonsense about it making
43M misleading statements.
And the President, who really is
a lovely, lovely man,
he made the whole thing... go away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
over 10 years, 46bn profit in 2026 so yeah not gonna deter anything.
Re:Potentially order the company to pay billions (Score:5, Interesting)
Excessive fines are always reduced on appeal. The numbers are intended to make headlines and show that something is being done.
In reality, a small fine is paid -less than the profits. The changes to business practices are things the company has already changed or wants to change, written up by the lawyers to look like a concession.
It is a show, staged for our benefit.
Re: (Score:3)
Not good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
They're never going to catch up with Trump, no matter how hard they try.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not good enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't that FB "can't catch up", they don't have to. The problem is FB amplifies those lies and from a few hundred a day they become a few billion a day. Even if 0.001% of that catches on, the democratic political process, which is quite broken even under the assumption rational decisions based on good information, becomes its antithesis, and you see stuff like the trump teabagging party, erika's outfit, AfD and whatnot.
Sadly, this is a tool so well developed now, that it is unstoppable under any traditional political system.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not lying if you believe it when you say it. And Trump is just bent enough that he believes these things while he's saying them. He's far less a liar than he is just broken.
Past Misstatements (Score:4, Informative)
Call it what it is in reality, lies.
Punishment (Score:4, Funny)
Like this [youtube.com]
By EditorDavid math (Score:2, Informative)
Trump makes 342.6 million misleading statements every time he says something.
What a stupidly written headline. Meta made some misleading statements that affected 43million people. They weren't 43million statements.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump makes 342.6 million misleading statements every time he says something.
What a stupidly written headline. Meta made some misleading statements that affected 43million people. They weren't 43million statements.
"If you haven't heard it before, then it's new to you".
So few? (Score:2)
43 million sounds suspiciously low to me. I would have expected at least one full-blown lie for every dollar Zuck the Cuck has stashed away.
Victory! (Score:1)
Your children are safe (Score:2)
Remember MySpace? Meta is going that way. Once you could share them cool pictures with family and friends unless you emailed that and with limitations the the nature of emails it was never going to compete with a "wall" and broadcasting your latest "look what I'm having for breakfast" pictures...but now you can share pictures through almost any chat app or just share folder access to thousands of them
I fail to see the issue - case dismissed (Score:1)
I fail to see how it is a problem for facebook to violate a click through agreement that nobody even bothers to read and facebook changes at will.
The real problem is the click through agreement model as a legal standard at all, not to mention how forced licensing which also needs to die.
Alice in Wonderland just ran through a second looking glass and has not idea if Alice is even real anymore,,,, forget Chester the Cat.
Devil's advocate (Score:2)
Cambridge Analytica and personal data harvesting (Score:3)
Kogan was a researcher in psychology at the University of Cambridge. His academic work included research into personality, social behaviour and online networks. In 2014, he established a commercial company called Global Science Research (GSR). GSR subsequently worked with SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.
A little personal responsibility can go a long way (Score:2)
"approximately 300,000 Facebook users took an online personality quiz, only to have the app that hosted the quiz harvest data from tens of millions of their "friends.""
Why do people believe such promises? For instance, every request to click a link and take an anonymous survey -- look at the URL. Does it include random numbers to identify the source of the URL? Then don't take it. Ignore it, or if you really want to participate in the survey, trim off all that identify cruft. Takes 5 seconds, which is
Less honest than Trump ? (Score:2)
Theya re going to be shoked (Score:1)