Snap, Meta Must Hand Social Media Posts to California Court

A federal law protecting personal online communication doesn’t shield Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc. from a subpoena requesting a user’s data for a criminal case, a California appeals court ruled, reasoning that the platforms already access and use customer information for their regular business.

The ruling shines light on an otherwise unanswered question in California courts: Whether social media companies’ customer data-driven business models place them outside the purview of the Stored Communications Act — a 1986 law meant to guard against government wiretapping. The California Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the issue.

“It is Snap ...