Meta must face US state lawsuits over teen social media addiction

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By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -Facebook parent company Meta must face lawsuits by U.S. states accusing it of fueling mental health problems among teens by making its Facebook and Instagram platforms addictive, a federal judge in California ruled on Tuesday.

Oakland-based U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Meta’s bid to toss the claims made by the states in two separate lawsuits filed last year, one involving more than 30 states including California and New York and the other brought by Florida. 

Rogers put some limits on the states’ claims, agreeing with Meta that a federal law known as Section 230 regulating online platforms partly shielded the company. However, she found that the states had put forward enough detail about allegedly misleading statements made by the company to go forward with most of their case.

The judge also rejected motions by Meta, ByteDance’s TikTok, Google parent Alphabet’s YouTube and Snap’s SnapChat to dismiss related personal injury lawsuits by individual plaintiffs. The other companies are not defendants to the states’ lawsuits.

The ruling clears the way for states and other plaintiffs to seek more evidence and potentially go to trial. It is not a final ruling on the merits of their cases.

“Meta needs to be held accountable for the very real harm it has inflicted on children here in California and across the country,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

Lawyers for the personal injury plaintiffs in a joint statement called the ruling “a significant victory for young people nationwide who have been negatively impacted by addictive and harmful social media platforms.”

A Meta spokesperson says that the company disagreed with the ruling overall and that it had “developed numerous tools to support parents and teens,” including new “Teen Accounts” on Instagram with added protections.

A Google spokesperson called the allegations “simply not true” and said, “providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work.”

The other social media companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The states are seeking court orders against Meta’s allegedly illegal business practices and are seeking unspecified monetary damages.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by various plaintiffs accusing the social media companies of designing addictive algorithms that lead to anxiety, depression and body-image issues among adolescents, and failing to warn of their risks.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Will Dunham, Stephen Coates and Shri Navaratnam)