Meta faces $25 billion Facebook privacy penalty as it promotes Muse safeguards

A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion on October 21 over misleading statements about Facebook's handling of personal information. The decision follows a jury finding of nearly 44 million violations of state consumer protection law. The case concerns Facebook's past conduct, rather than a court finding about Muse, Meta's personal AI assistant.

The lawsuit grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and examined Facebook's assurances about privacy and outside access to user information. Judge Francis J. Mathew found that the company's misleading conduct was intentional. Meta disputes the outcome and says it will appeal.

The judgment arrives as Meta asks users to connect personal services to Muse, which can perform tasks such as arranging travel and sending emails. Meta says the assistant cannot read stored passwords or payment credentials, requires approval for sensitive actions and keeps conversations separate from its advertising systems. Those are the company's stated safeguards, not findings established by the New Mexico case.

Meta has also announced a further privacy feature for later in 2026. It says Muse Confidential VM will encrypt the assistant's computing environment with a key controlled solely by the user, preventing Meta itself from accessing the contents. That protection was described as forthcoming in the company's launch announcement.