New Mexico's Largest Judgement In U.S. History Strains Credulity

New Mexico’s $25 billion judgement against Meta is an obnoxious shakedown of the Menlo Park, CA technology giant. But that’s shooting fish in the most crowded of barrels. So, while the attempted shakedown of Meta will be revisited at this piece’s conclusion, for now readers won’t be insulted with the obvious.

Instead, and as a way of articulating the absurdity of the ruling, a simple question will be asked: How often do you the reader read “Terms of Service” and “Terms and Conditions” before going about your merry way on the internet? Tick tock, tick tock…

It’s worth contemplating questions that answer themselves while addressing New Mexico’s judgement. As a report in the Washington Post indicated, the gargantuan fine is being levied on Meta for “deceiving users about how it handled their personal data.” Oh dear…

Implied in the allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Meta is that even one New Mexico resident ever asked about the handling of personal data, let alone the 1.3 million Facebook account holders in New Mexico as of 2020. Said another way, for there to have been a deception of Facebook account holders, then there would have had to have been questions posed by New Mexico’s Facebook account holders about personal data usage ahead of signing up.

More realistically, something like 1.36 million to 1.4 million Meta account holders in New Mexico didn’t just voluntarily sign up for the social media platform, but did so with great excitement. Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found not just in New Mexico’s 1.3 million+ Facebook participants, but in the 3 billion+ Facebook account holders around the world. Facebook personifies virality.

Judge Francis J. Mathew’s ruling against Meta strains to create the laughable perception that Facebook account holders required inducement to spend copious time on the site, after which they were damaged for having done so. In Mathew’s words, “The harm in this matter is difficult to overstate.” Oh yes, the joy of posting and seeing posts on Facebook, the knowledge attained from spending time on it, and the uplifting community of Facebook. Somehow this was “damaging.”

Which calls for a brief digression. It was in the 1860s that the first transcontinental cable was laid from North America to Europe. The continents were connected! Though communication was nosebleed expensive ($10/word with a 10 word minimum), this was the beginning of connectivity among people not just across the street from one another, but on other continents altogether.

Fast forward to 2004 and the launch of TheFacebook, is it any wonder that college students clamored for it? Lest we forget, long distance bills were still being itemized by roommates, not to mention that mobile calls then still worked out to.18 cents per minute. Only for Facebook to soon enough connect the world for the cost of an internet connection.

That Facebook took on viral qualities isn’t terribly surprising based on what prevailed previously. And the only “cost” associated with being a Facebook account holder was information provided through usage not so that Facebook could spy on or harm account holders, but get to know them better so that Facebook could improve the Facebook user experience.

Which is precisely what Facebook did with the information gleaned from its account holders. Evidence supporting this claim can be found in a $25 billion judgement foisted on Meta by a judge in a state with an $11 billion annual budget. Sorry, but crowded barrels of fish sometimes must be shot into.

Originally published on Real Clear Markets.