A U.S. Appeals court just dealt Meta a big blow in the company’s long fight against social media addiction lawsuits.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeals request from Meta, basically allowing the social media giant and its co-defendants TikTok-owner ByteDance, YouTube-owner Google and Snapchat-owner Snap to face more than 3,000 social media addiction lawsuits.
Meta lost a key, bellwether social media trial earlier this year, in which a now 20-year-old claimed that deliberately addictive design features on social media platforms like Instagram got her addicted from a very young age. That addiction in turn exacerbated mental health problems like depression, body image issues, and anxiety, the suit alleged. The judge ruled in favor of the 20-year-old who goes by the initials K.G.M., creating a watershed moment that opened the floodgates to thousands more lawsuits in a similar vein.
Until that verdict, Meta and other social media operators were seen as shielded from such litigation under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that platform operators can’t be held liable for third-party content posted on said platforms. The March verdict basically set the precedent for a way to hold social media operators accountable despite that ruling by focusing on the addictive design features of social media websites, such as infinite scroll and autoplay.
Meta had previously claimed that it was legally immune to accusations that its social media platforms caused harm to users under Section 230. The company also claimed that the law provided legal protection from the claims brought by both school districts and state attorneys “in substantial part,” as well, the appeals court said in its opinion, but a district court had rejected its defense, leading Meta to appeal.
Along with individual victims like K.G.M, school districts around the nation have sued Meta, Snap, Google and ByteDance, claiming that the social media platforms the companies own have had such a huge negative impact on the mental health of school-age children that it caused a burden on the American education system.
Simultaneously, Meta is also being sued by 33 states alleging that the company exploits its young Instagram and Facebook users for profit, including by collecting data without parental consent. Four out of those 33 states, namely California, New Jersey, Colorado and Kentucky, are also claiming that the company’s addictive design features have misled consumers, thereby causing mental health damage to vulnerable children. Those social media addiction claims could result in $1.4 trillion in damages, Meta said last month, an existential hit considering the company’s current market value is only a little over $1.5 trillion. Meta was hoping to delay the trial in that case as well, but with the ruling of the appeals court, the trial is set to begin tomorrow with jury selection.
The appeals court didn’t necessarily strike down Meta’s argument relying on Section 230. Still, it did rule that the tech giant had acted prematurely and appealed too early, saying that Section 230 only offers a “defense against liability,” not immunity from being sued. That means Meta will have to face trial in the mounting pile of social media addiction cases, which are increasingly proving to be a considerable financial headache for the company.
Meta spent $2.4 billion on litigation in the past quarter alone, according to its latest earnings report, with the bulk of those legal proceedings concerning youth social media addiction lawsuits. That number was reported before the tech giant was ordered by a New Mexico court last week to pay another $567 million—on top of a previous fine—which went into a fund meant to address the negative mental health impact Meta’s social media platforms have had on young users.
The negative publicity on the social media side is also compounded by the recent mess Meta found itself in when it comes to AI and minors. Just last year, Meta came under considerable public scrutiny when a Reuters report found that it had allowed its AI chatbots to have “sensual” conversations with children.
