Meta is back in court in another trial related to social media addiction.
Massachusetts' highest court ruled on Friday that Meta Inc. must face trial in a lawsuit brought by the state's attorney general, accusing the parent company of Facebook and Instagram of designing addictive features for young users. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling marks the first time the highest state court has considered whether federal law, which typically protects internet companies from lawsuits related to user-generated content, can also block lawsuits alleging that companies like Meta intentionally caused addiction among young users. Meta has denied these claims, asserting that it takes extensive measures to protect teenagers and young users on its platforms, according to Reuters. This decision follows a landmark trial in which a Los Angeles jury, on March 25, found Meta and Google guilty of negligence in designing social media platforms that harm young people. The court awarded a total of $6 million in compensation to a 20-year-old woman who said she had been addicted to social media since childhood. A separate jury, the day before this ruling, found Meta guilty and ordered it to pay $375 million in civil damages in a lawsuit brought by the New Mexico Attorney General, accusing the company of misleading users about the safety of Facebook and Instagram and facilitating the sexual exploitation of children on those platforms. Thirty-four other states have filed similar lawsuits against Meta in federal court. The lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is one of at least nine filed by state attorneys general since 2023, including one filed Wednesday by Iowa Attorney General Breanna Byrd. Campbell’s lawsuit received early media attention because of allegations that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was treating concerns about the potential for some aspects of Instagram to be harmful to users lightly. The lawsuit alleges that features on Instagram, such as instant notifications, likes on users' posts, and infinite scrolling, were designed to exploit teenagers' psychological vulnerabilities and "their fear of missing out." The state claimed that internal data showed the platform was addictive and harmful to children, yet top executives rejected changes that company research showed would improve teenagers' mental health. Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, sought to dismiss the Massachusetts case based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a federal law that generally protects internet companies from lawsuits related to content posted by users. But the state argued that Section 230 does not apply to the misleading statements that Meta allegedly made about Instagram's safety, its efforts to protect young users, or its age verification systems to ensure that those under 13 are prevented from using the platform. A lower court judge agreed with this argument, saying that the law also does not apply to claims about the negative effects of Instagram's design features, because the state "is primarily seeking to hold Meta accountable for its own business conduct," not for content posted by third parties.
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