US court rules Meta, tech firms must face thousands of lawsuits over social media addiction
A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms , Alphabet's Google, ByteDance's TikTok, and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies’ bid to reverse a lower court’s ruling forcing them to face more than…
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that Meta Platforms, Google's Alphabet, TikTok's ByteDance, and other social media companies can be held liable in thousands of lawsuits alleging that their platforms are designed to be addictive to young users. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied the companies' attempt to overturn a lower court's decision which mandated the lawsuits proceed against the defendants, which also include Snap Inc's Snapchat.
The companies argued that Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which typically shields online companies from claims over user-generated content, also barred lawsuits claiming they did not warn the public about the addictive nature of their platforms. However, the appeals court disagreed, stating that Section 230 does not provide broad immunity in this situation.
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