US court allows 3,000 social media addiction lawsuits to proceed

MUMBAI: The scroll just got a little harder to escape. A US appeals court has cleared the way for more than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta, TikTok, Google and Snap over allegations that their platforms were designed to encourage addictive use among young people.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an attempt by Meta and TikTok to challenge a lower court’s decision allowing the federal cases to continue. The lawsuits, brought by parents, individuals, schools, municipalities and state governments, allege that the companies deliberately designed features that encouraged excessive engagement among children and teenagers.

At the centre of the legal battle is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 law that generally shields online platforms from liability for content posted by users.

Meta and TikTok argued that the provision should also protect them from claims concerning the allegedly addictive characteristics of their products. The appeals court, however, said the companies’ challenge had come too early, holding that Section 230 provides a defence against liability rather than blanket immunity from facing a lawsuit.

That distinction is important. The ruling does not establish that Meta, TikTok, Google or Snap are liable for harming young users. Instead, it means the underlying litigation can move forward and examine claims that platform design itself contributed to excessive use and alleged mental health problems.

The wider federal litigation has been consolidated before US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. Plaintiffs allege that features including recommendation systems and engagement mechanisms contributed to problems such as anxiety, depression and body-image concerns among young users.

The court also rejected Meta’s request to delay a separate trial brought by attorneys general from 29 US states. The case alleges that Meta collected children’s data, designed its platforms to encourage prolonged engagement and misrepresented the safety of its services. The trial is scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

The latest ruling arrives just days after a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund for youth mental health and imposed measures aimed at strengthening protections for minors. Meta has said it plans to appeal that decision.

The company has also faced another setback in California, where a jury awarded $6 million to a woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. Meta and Google have faced proceedings stemming from similar allegations and have continued to dispute claims that their platforms are responsible for the alleged harms.

The scale of the litigation is adding pressure on the technology industry to defend not just what users post, but how platforms are built to keep them coming back. Around 3,300 related cases have also been consolidated in California state court, adding another layer to the legal challenge.

For the companies, the fight now extends beyond whether Section 230 can shield user-generated content. The cases could test how far that protection reaches when plaintiffs argue that the platforms’ own product design, algorithms and engagement features are responsible for alleged harm.

For Big Tech, the message from the latest ruling is therefore fairly simple: the legal scroll is not ending anytime soon.