Meta was sued by Facebook users after their personal data was misused by Cambridge Analytica in 2018. The data of nearly 90 million users was confirmed to have been compromised with Cambridge Analytica's services being used by a local political party for their GE campaign. Last Thursday Meta agreed to pay $725 million (RM3.2 billion) to settle this class action out of court.
This $725 million settlement is the largest ever paid to settle a class action lawsuit in United States history. Between 250-280 million Facebook users will receive damages after the payment was approved by a judge in San Francisco. This is after 25% is taken by the law firm as a case handling fee.
This is not the first payment made by Meta due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. They have been fined $5 billion to the FTC and $100 million to the SEC since Cambridge Analytica's misuse of user data became public. This led Meta to tighten its use of user data and filter advertising during the general election season around the world to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
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