A jury is involved in the process. If the jury doesn't find violations, the judge can't assign penalties for those violations.

> The jury concluded that Meta had more than 43 million violations of the state’s unfair practices act, with each transgression carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000.

Note that this is like, 20 violations per resident of New Mexico. And also ~50% of Facebook's total revenue (more than 100% of income) at the time of the CA scandal.

No one reads the article anymore. They're just vibe commenting.