Meta Must Face Massachusetts Youth Addiction Lawsuit (2)

Meta Platforms Inc. isn’t immune from claims it designed Instagram to addict youth, Massachusetts high court said Friday, rejecting the Facebook parent’s invocation of a federal legal shield to block the lawsuit.

The Supreme Judicial Court said Friday in a unanimous decision that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act providing immunity for websites’ handling of third-party content can’t be stretched to cover allegations that Meta crafted certain features of Instagram to addict youth then lied about the platform’s safety.

Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote the federal immunity shield is much narrower than Meta says it is and comes into play only when litigation both targets publishing activities and seeks liability based on some particular third-party content.

“The fact that a claim concerns publishing activities, including the use of algorithms in connection with publishing activities, is not enough to bring the claim within the immunity provided by” Section 230, the court said.

Claims that Meta deceived consumers by falsely claiming Instagram is safe and not addictive and saying Meta prioritizes youth well-being also steer clear of the limited reach of Section 230, the court said, since they rest on the social media company’s own statements, rather than third-party content. The same is true for unfair business practices claims based on allegations that Meta’s age-verification features are ineffective.

“Here, the Commonwealth asserts that the defective age verification features give rise to heightened harm to underage users who are particularly vulnerable to the design features challenged,” the court said. “The Commonwealth does not allege harm stemming from the content of any information published.”

Section 230

The case being advanced by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D) is one of thousands targeting the social media industry for its products’ impacts on young people. Meta has estimated damages in some of the cases reaching the high tens of billions of dollars, and experts fear a wave of liability as an “existential threat” to the industry.

The costs are already materializing for the industry, with a $6 million verdict against Meta and Google in California and a $375 million verdict against Meta in New Mexico being handed down in recent weeks.

Meta and other social media giants have have advocated for a broader interpretation of Section 230 that offers protection whenever content has any relationship with the claim. Such an interpretation would have defeated much of the state;s lawsuit, since all of the challenged instagram features—infinite scroll, autoplay, intermittent variable rewards and ephemeral content—involve content in some respect.

The justices were skeptical of Meta’s interpretation of the federal immunity during oral arguments in December, with one saying the Instagram features were “a way to publish” as much as they were an answer to “how to attract the eyeballs.”

Meta said in a statement it disagreed with the opinion’s “false distinction between content and platform design” and dismissed the decision as a procedural ruling that doesn’t address the merits of the state’s case.

“We are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” said Meta spokesman Christopher Sgro.

In a statement, Campbell said the ruling was “a major step in holding these companies accountable for practices that have fueled the youth mental health crisis and put profits over kids.”

Meta is represented by Covington & Burling LLP and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. The state is represented by its attorney general’s office.

The case is Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms Inc., Mass., SJC-13747, 4/10/26.