Facebook Found Liable in New Mexico as TikTok Settles in Alabama
On September 26, 2026, a jury in New Mexico found Facebook liable for deceptive actions regarding user safety and privacy, while TikTok and its parent company ByteDance agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million to resolve user-safety claims.
The New Mexico verdict centered on the harvesting of data from about 87 million profiles through a third-party personality quiz that was sold to Cambridge Analytica for targeted advertisements, according to Al Jazeera. Jurors found that Facebook deceived the public about its investigations into third parties harvesting user data after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. They also found that the company published deceptive statements about protecting the data of New Mexico's population of more than two million.
The New Mexico Department of Justice described the outcome as a landmark verdict against Meta. The jury ordered $375 million in civil penalties, or fines set by state law, at $5,000 per violation, the maximum penalty under the law, according to the New Mexico Department of Justice. The underlying action, captioned New Mexico v. Meta et al., asserts claims based on alleged deceptive, unfair, unconscionable, unreasonable and unlawful conduct. A redacted complaint, with sensitive parts hidden, is hosted on the attorney general's website. Meta agreed in August 2026 to pay $18 billion to settle a separate lawsuit involving child safety issues.
In Alabama, the settlement resolved a lawsuit filed in 2025 by Attorney General Steve Marshall. The state accused TikTok of intentionally designing the platform to be addictive and misleading consumers about its safety. The 2025 complaint also claimed negative effects on the mental well-being of youths. TikTok agreed to pay the state at least $100 million, according to the Associated Press. It was the company's first-ever settlement with a U.S. state. It came days before its scheduled trial.
That trial would have been the first state trial over claims of teen harms, according to Reuters. ByteDance is TikTok's Chinese parent company. Marshall's office announced the agreement as a historic multi-million-dollar settlement. As part of the resolution, TikTok agreed to implement safety features for teens in the state. Those measures include a two-hour daily time limit with parental controls, according to the Alabama Attorney General's office.
The broader context here is how state consumer-protection litigation, or lawsuits to enforce fair-business laws, is now operating on two parallel tracks. A jury verdict in New Mexico tests whether per-violation civil penalties can create material exposure even without a federal privacy statute. A pre-trial settlement in Alabama tests whether product-design remedies, including time limits and parental controls, can be negotiated state by state. In my view, the pairing matters for counsel and regulators alike. Verdicts set a penalty reference point. Settlements set a remediation template.
