A federal judge has largely denied Meta’s motion to dismiss claims brought by 34 states alleging that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for young users, causing harm to children, local governments, and public health.
Courthouse News Service reports that U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that many of the consumer protection claims brought by the state attorneys general against Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta can proceed. The judge denied Meta’s request to dismiss parts of the states’ claims under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits collecting data from social media users under 13 without parental notification and permission.
Meta had argued that neither Facebook nor Instagram is directed at children, and therefore, the COPPA claims should be dismissed. However, Judge Gonzalez Rogers disagreed, stating that third-party content hosted on these platforms can be considered when determining whether the platform, or a portion of it, is directed at children under the act.
The judge found that some of Meta’s design, development, and deployment of certain product features could plausibly constitute unfair or unconscionable practices under federal and state standards. However, she also noted that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online businesses from liability for user-generated content, limits some elements of the lawsuit’s claims.
Certain Facebook and Instagram features that the states claim are designed to get children hooked, such as infinite scroll, autoplay, ephemeral content, disruptive notifications, and the quantification and display of “likes,” are protected under Section 230, according to the judge. Other features, like appearance-altering filters, time restriction features, and Instagram’s multiple account function, are not shielded because they don’t involve altering the publishing of third-party content.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers also rejected Meta’s request to dismiss the states’ failure to warn theory under Section 230, stating that it involves a “constellation of acts which, viewed both individually and holistically, constitute an unfair trade act or practice.” The judge pointed out that the application of Section 230 in this context is still a developing area of legal interpretation and declined to foreclose the states’ and personal injury plaintiffs’ failure-to-warn theories at this early stage.
A Meta spokesperson highlighted the company’s commitment to supporting young people through the development of numerous tools for parents and teens, including the recent announcement of significant changes to the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new Teen Accounts that automatically limit contact and content.
The ruling is part of a multi-district proceeding consolidating hundreds of personal injury lawsuits on behalf of children and adolescents, school districts, local governments, and state attorneys general. The plaintiffs claim that Facebook, Instagram, Google’s YouTube, China’s TikTok, and Snapchat are designed to foster compulsive use by minors.
Read more at Courthouse News Service here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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