Meta, Snap, Others Face Social Media Injury Suits in California

Meta Platforms Inc. and other social media companies will face consolidated pretrial litigation in California over claims that Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms cause addiction and self-destructive behavior in adolescents, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said.

Other social media giants included in the multidistrict litigation are Alphabet Inc. and its Google LLC and YouTube LLC units; Snap. Inc.; and TikTok Inc. and its parent ByteDance Inc.

The panel acknowledged those companies’ arguments that Snap, TikTok, and YouTube differ from Facebook and Instagram and that users interact with them differently, but said these factual distinctions don’t negate the ...