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The appeals court ruled Section 230 provides a liability defense, not immunity, making Meta’s appeal premature
Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Meta $META Platforms, Alphabet $GOOGL’s Google, ByteDance’s TikTok, and Snap $SNAP’s Snapchat must face more than 3,000 federal lawsuits alleging they designed their platforms to addict young users, after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies’ bid on Monday to reverse a lower court’s ruling allowing the litigation to proceed, according to Reuters.
The appeals court, based in San Francisco, concluded the companies had moved prematurely by seeking review before the district court proceedings had run their course. Meta had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 — which generally shields online platforms from liability over user-posted content — granted it broad immunity, entitling the company to appeal immediately. The 9th Circuit rejected that argument, holding that Section 230 operates as a liability defense — not a shield against being sued in the first place — which meant the interlocutory appeal could not yet proceed.
The court also denied a separate Meta request to postpone a trial beginning Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general. That case claims Meta unlawfully gathered personal data from minors, engineered its products to maximize youth engagement, and deceived the public about the harms its platforms posed. A Meta representative did not respond to a request for comment.
The federal docket — encompassing suits brought by states, municipalities, school districts, and private plaintiffs — has been centralized under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. The companies challenged her 2023 and 2024 rulings, which had permitted the bulk of the claims to continue. The companies are also facing approximately 3,300 additional similar lawsuits consolidated in California state court.
The 9th Circuit ruling arrives as Meta has absorbed a string of courtroom losses in related litigation. A Los Angeles jury in March found Meta and Google negligent for building platforms harmful to minors and awarded $6 million to a plaintiff who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge upheld that verdict after denying new-trial motions from both companies. Meta also lost both phases of a lawsuit brought by New Mexico in state court. A jury in March ordered it to pay $375 million after finding it misled consumers about platform safety, and a judge last week found Meta had created a public nuisance and ordered it to pay an additional $567 million and put youth-safety measures in place. Both Meta and Google said they plan to appeal those rulings.
The federal litigation has not moved uniformly against the companies. A Florida teenager dropped his addiction lawsuit against Meta without payment earlier this year after resolving claims against other defendants through confidential settlements, a dismissal Meta called a vindication of its position.
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