10.08.2026
3 min
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A US appeals court has allowed more than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snap to move forward. The companies are accused of deliberately designing their social media platforms to be addictive to children and teenagers.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco rejected an attempt by Meta and TikTok to challenge a lower court ruling that allowed the mass lawsuits to move forward. The court concluded that the companies had filed their appeal too early.
Meta and TikTok sought to rely on Section 230 of the 1996 US Communications Decency Act. The provision generally protects online platforms from liability for content posted by their users.
The companies argued that this protection should also apply to lawsuits accusing them of failing to warn users about the potentially addictive nature of their platforms. In their view, they should not have to wait until the entire legal process is over before appealing the issue.
However, the appeals court disagreed. The judges said Section 230 can serve as a defense against liability, but it does not give companies immunity from the legal proceedings themselves. As a result, challenging the lower court’s ruling at this stage was premature.
Separately, the court rejected Meta’s attempt to delay another trial scheduled to begin on Wednesday. The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general of 29 US states.
They accuse the company of illegally collecting and using children’s data, designing its social media platforms to keep young users engaged for as long as possible, and misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms. Meta argued that the trial should not begin while its appeal was pending, but the court rejected that request.
The ruling came just days after another major setback for Meta. A judge in New Mexico found that the company’s conduct had created a public nuisance and ordered it to contribute $567 million to a youth mental health fund, as well as introduce additional measures to protect young users.
Attorneys Lexi Hazam and Previn Warren, who represent thousands of school districts and individual plaintiffs in federal cases against Meta and other companies, said the ruling would allow both the states’ lawsuit and a separate trial involving school district claims, scheduled for February, to move forward.
According to the attorneys, the trial should reveal what Meta knew about the impact of its products on children, when the company learned about those effects, and how it chose to respond. They also claimed that Meta had tried to prevent the relevant evidence from being made public.
The lawsuits against the technology companies have been filed by states, municipalities, school districts, and individual plaintiffs. They allege that social media platforms were deliberately designed with features capable of creating addictive behavior among young users.
According to the plaintiffs, these practices have contributed to depression, anxiety, body image issues, and an overall deterioration in the mental health of young Americans in recent years.
The plaintiffs also dispute the technology companies’ arguments regarding Section 230. They maintain that the legal protection primarily applies to third-party content, while the current claims concern how the companies themselves design and operate their products.
The federal cases have been consolidated before US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. The plaintiffs are seeking damages, penalties, and restitution. Meta and other companies have challenged the judge’s 2023 and 2024 rulings, which largely allowed the cases to move forward.
In addition to more than 3,000 federal lawsuits, the companies are facing hundreds of similar claims in state courts. Around 3,300 such cases have already been consolidated into separate proceedings in California.
One of the first major warning signs for the technology companies came in March, when the first trial in the California proceedings concluded in Los Angeles. The case was closely watched because its outcome could indicate how juries might respond to similar allegations in other lawsuits.
The jury found Meta and Google negligent over social media design features that could harm young people. The court awarded $6 million to a young woman who said she had become addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.
The New Mexico court’s $567 million ruling also followed an earlier case against Meta. In March, a jury ordered the company to pay $375 million after concluding that it had misled users about the safety of its platforms.
Meta and Google deny the allegations against them and have said they will appeal the respective rulings.
The controversy surrounding potentially addictive social media design in the US has already grown into a large-scale legal battle. One of the key questions is whether technology companies can rely on the protections provided by Section 230 when the claims concern not user-generated content, but the platforms’ own decisions about how their services are designed and operated.
The latest appeals court ruling does not ultimately determine whether Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap are liable for the alleged harm. Instead, it means that thousands of lawsuits can continue moving through the courts and that the companies will have to defend themselves against the allegations.
Meta and TikTok’s attempt to stop the mass litigation at an early stage has failed. The technology companies will now have to continue fighting thousands of lawsuits linking the design of popular social media platforms to addiction and mental health problems among young people.
