Meta, Google, TikTok Must Face Hundreds of Addiction Suits (2)

Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok must face claims in hundreds of federal lawsuits blaming them for addicting young people to social media, a judge ruled.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, dismissed some of the claims, which also target Snap Inc. and Discord Inc., while allowing others to proceed. The many cases have been grouped together for Rogers to oversee.

In a 52-page ruling Tuesday, the judge rejected the companies’ arguments that they are immune from personal injury claims under the Constitution’s First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Social media platforms have relied on that federal law to block suits stemming from the content created and posted by users.

At the same time, Rogers dismissed product liability claims in which the companies were accused of design defects, including publishing location information for minors and failing to limit certain content. The judge also criticized both parties for an “all-or-nothing” approach in their legal arguments, which she said “does not sufficiently address the complexity of the issues facing this litigation.”

Nuisance Claims

The companies now face a flood of suits accusing them of using algorithms to hook adolescents and young adults on their platforms and causing them to suffer anxiety, depression, eating disorders and sleeplessness. The tech giants also have been hit with scores of complaints by school districts alleging the platforms have created a public nuisance.

“The mental health crisis among American youth is a direct result of these defendants’ intentional design of harmful product features,” the plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel said in a statement. They said the ruling “repudiates Big Tech’s overbroad and incorrect claim that Section 230 or the 1st Amendment should grant them blanket immunity for the harm they cause to their users.”

Google said protecting children across its platforms “has always been core to our work.”

“In collaboration with child development specialists, we have built age-appropriate experiences for kids and families on YouTube, and provide parents with robust controls,” spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement. “The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”

The lawsuits are seeking a court order to block allegedly harmful practices by the social media giants, plus damages.

Dozens of state attorneys general last month joined together to file their own complaint alleging that the platform owners exploit kids for profit and feed them harmful content.

The idea that social media companies shoulder responsibility for the potential damage their products cause to young people came to the fore late in 2021 when former Meta employee Frances Haugen emerged as a whistleblower with documents about internal operations.

The case is In Re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, 22-md-03047, US District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).

(Updates with judge’s comments in fourth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Isaiah Poritz.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Madlin Mekelburg in Austin at mmekelburg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Peter Jeffrey at pjeffrey@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth

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