By Rajwa Quasim
A U.S. appeals court dealt a major blow to social media giants like Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat and other companies on Monday. The court ruled that thousands of lawsuits alleging their platforms were designed to be addictive to young users can move forward.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, turned down an attempt by the Meta and TikTok to overturn a lower court’s decision compelling them to answer more than 3,000 lawsuits. The court found that the appeal was too early, according to Reuters.
In their appeal, the companies argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields them from lawsuits which alleged they failed to warn about the addictive nature of their services. The act generally protects online platforms from liability for content posted by users.
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The companies sought to appeal before the case reached a final verdict. They argued that they should not have to wait until the litigation ends to challenge the lower courts’ rejection of their defense using Section 230. The 9th Circuit Court disagreed, ruling that the law provides a defense against liability of user-posted content rather than immunity from lawsuits and that the companies have appealed prematurely.
Thousands of families, school districts, and other plaintiffs have accused these platforms of using features such as personalized recommendations, endless scrolling, and notifications to encourage excessive use. They further claim that some platforms failed to adequately protect young users from harmful content which is not appropriate for underage users.
“A trial is how the public finds out what Meta knew about its products’ impact on children, when it knew it, and what it chose to do with that knowledge. Meta has fought to keep that evidence from the public,” said Lexi Hazam and Previn warren, the attorneys representing school districts and individuals suing Meta. The plaintiffs also claim that the defendants cannot use Section 230 as it does not cover claims related to how companies design their platform or how they operate.
The ruling comes as the companies already face hundreds of additional lawsuits over similar claims in state court. The California state itself has roughly 3,300 consolidated lawsuits. As the cases have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, the companies had previously appealed Roger’s 2023 and 2024 orders which allowed the litigation process to proceed.
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Last week, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million for a fund aimed at addressing mental health harms among teenagers who use its platforms. The judge also ordered the company to make several changes to Facebook and Instagram in a way it doesn’t harm children’s wellbeing. The case initially started in 2023 by state attorneys. In the first ruling in March, the jury had ordered the company to pay $375 million in penalty. It had found the company violated the state’s consumer protection law, and in total, making the company pay around $942 million. But the company said it would appeal, disagreeing with the court’s ruling.
The 9th Circuit Court also denied Meta’s bid to postpone a trial beginning this week in a lawsuit bought by 29 state attorneys general who claimed that the company illegally collected and used children’s data while designing its platforms to keep the young users hooked.