Tech firms to face thousands of suits over addiction claims

SAN FRANCISCO — A US appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits against Meta Platforms, Alphabet's Google, ByteDance's TikTok and Snap Inc's Snapchat to move forward over claims that the companies designed their products to be addictive to young users.

The San Francisco-based Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by Meta and TikTok seeking to overturn a lower-court ruling requiring them to face more than 3,000 lawsuits filed in federal court.

The companies had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 also bars lawsuits alleging that they failed to warn the public about the addictive nature of their platforms.

The Ninth Circuit said Section 230 provides a defense to liability, not immunity from lawsuits, and therefore the appeal was premature.

The court also denied Meta's bid to postpone a trial beginning Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general, who allege that Meta illegally collected and used children's data, designed its platforms to keep young users hooked and misled consumers about their safety.

The ruling came days after a New Mexico judge found that Meta had created a public nuisance in the state and ordered it to pay $567 million into a teen mental health fund and implement youth-safety measures.

The companies face hundreds of additional lawsuits in state courts, including about 3,300 consolidated cases in California.

In the first California case to go to trial, a Los Angeles jury in March found Meta and Google negligent for designing social media platforms that harm young people and awarded $6 million to a young woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.

Both companies have denied the claims and said they would appeal.

AGENCIES VIA XINHUA