{"id":37370,"date":"2026-08-10T22:52:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37370"},"modified":"2026-08-10T22:52:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:52:58","slug":"us-court-rules-meta-other-tech-companies-must-face-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-social-media-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37370","title":{"rendered":"US court rules Meta, other tech companies must face thousands of lawsuits over social media addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">By Diana Novak Jones<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Aug 10 (Reuters) &#8211; A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet&#8217;s Google, ByteDance&#8217;s TikTok, and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to \u200cyoung users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies&#8217; bid to reverse a lower court&#8217;s ruling forcing them \u200cto face more than 3,000 lawsuits over the claims filed in federal court, concluding that the appeal came too early in the litigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The defendants, which also include Snap Inc&#8217;s Snapchat, \u200bhad argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 &#8212; which generally shields online companies from claims over content posted by their users &#8211; also bars lawsuits claiming they failed to warn the public about the addictive nature of their platforms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Most appeals come after a case has concluded with a ruling or a verdict. Meta had argued that Section 230 provided it broad immunity and that it should be able to appeal the lower court&#8217;s decision immediately. But \u200cthe 9th Circuit said Section 230 provides a \u2060defense to liability, not immunity from lawsuits, so the appeal was premature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The court also denied Meta&#8217;s bid to postpone a trial beginning Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general alleging that the company illegally collected and \u2060used children&#8217;s data, designed their social media platforms to keep young users hooked, and misled consumers about their safety. The company had argued that the trial couldn&#8217;t go forward while the appeal had been outstanding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A representative for Meta and a spokesperson for the lead attorneys in the appeal did not immediately respond to requests for \u200bcomment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">THOUSANDS \u200bOF LAWSUITS<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Filed by states, municipalities, school districts and individuals, the lawsuits allege that social \u200bmedia companies intentionally addicted young users, contributing to surging depression, \u200canxiety and body-image issues and a broader mental health crisis among American youth in recent years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Parents, school districts, states and other plaintiffs had argued that the trial court&#8217;s ruling was not final and therefore could not be appealed. But they also objected to the companies&#8217; arguments about Section 230, saying it does not cover claims related to how they operate and design their products.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The cases, which have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, seek damages, penalties and restitution from the companies. The companies appealed Rogers&#8217; orders in 2023 and 2024 that largely allowed the \u200clitigation to move forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The companies are facing hundreds of additional lawsuits over similar claims \u200bin state court, with approximately 3,300 of them in a consolidated proceeding in California \u200bstate court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In the first lawsuit to go to trial in the \u200bCalifornia litigation, and a closely watched test of how juries might respond to similar claims, a Los Angeles jury in \u200cMarch found Meta and Google negligent for designing social media \u200bplatforms that harm young people. The \u200bjury awarded $6 million to a now\u201120\u2011year\u2011old woman who says she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And, Meta lost both phases of a landmark lawsuit brought by New Mexico in state court. A jury in March ordered it to pay $375 million after finding \u200bit had misled consumers about the safety of its \u200cplatforms. On Thursday, a judge found Meta had created a public nuisance and ordered it to pay an additional $567 million and \u200bimplement youth-safety measures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Both Meta and Google, which have denied the claims in those cases, said they would appeal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Diana Novak \u200bJones in Chicago, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Matthew Lewis and David Bario)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Diana Novak Jones Aug 10 (Reuters) &#8211; A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet&#8217;s Google, ByteDance&#8217;s TikTok, and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to \u200cyoung users. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/688bdf965753318280c7545394119fac6de664b861b877b5df3141f2ef3855b3\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F6b8334467ed5b721b1194db67377db24","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}