Social Media Companies Face a Potential Legal Reckoning As Thousands Of Lawsuits Are Set To Move Forward

A federal appeals court ruled that thousands of lawsuits filed against Meta and other social media companies over addictive features can move forward.

The lawsuits, many of them filed by school districts and state governments, allege that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, were designed to be addictive and have contributed to mental health issues in children.

Meta recently lost a similar lawsuit filed by New Mexico. In that case, the company was ordered to pay $942 million after it was found that the company hurt the mental health of children and enabled sexual predators.

Meta disputed the New Mexico ruling and said it would appeal.

"We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content," a Meta spokesperson told Fox Business. "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."

Social media companies hoped to avoid similar potential results by having numerous, current, lawsuits thrown out on technical, legal grounds. In the Ninth Circuit appeal, Meta focused on section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which was passed in 1996.

Under section 230, internet platforms, like Facebook, can allow users to publish content without incurring liability for that content. Essentially, the platforms are not treated as the publishers of the content.

The court of appeals ruled that while section 230 provides immunity from liability for content published by users, it does not shield the social media companies from lawsuits.

For example, lawsuits can home in on design elements of the sites. In the New Mexico case, evidence presented at trial showed that Meta had designed its platforms in a way that ended up being addictive to young people. Other evidence focused on Meta design features that New Mexico said enabled pedophiles and predators to engage in child sexual exploitation on the company's platforms.

Earlier this year, the United Kingdom announced a ban on social media for anyone under 16 and also restrictions on usage for older teens. In making the announcements, the UK said that social media was addictive for children. The restrictions for older teens focused on features such as autoplay and infinite scroll.

In making its ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court noted that the thousands of lawsuits that have been filed allege that Meta's social media platforms Facebook and Instagram "encourage addictive behavior, fail to verify users' ages, encourage adolescents to bypass parental controls, and inadequately safeguard against harmful content and/or intentionally amplify harmful and exploitive content."

The ruling does not mean that section 230 might not be an effective defense against the claims made in the many lawsuits. Rather, the ruling states that section 230 is not a protection against being sued at all.

Lexi Hazam and Previn Warren, attorneys representing thousands of school districts suing Meta and other companies, told Reuters that the ruling will allow a trial and help inform the public about the conduct of social media companies.

"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," the attorneys told Reuters. "Meta has fought to keep that evidence from the public."