Court denies Meta’s bid to delay trial over children’s data
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that thousands of lawsuits against social media companies, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, can proceed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected arguments from Google, Meta, Snap and ByteDance’s TikTok that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields them from liability.
The ruling came in response to efforts by Google; Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram; Snap; and ByteDance’s TikTok to overturn a lower court decision.
The companies had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online service providers from liability for third-party content, also protects them from lawsuits alleging they failed to warn users about addictive behavior.
“Although Section 230 does not expressly provide for immunity from suit, Meta argues that such immunity should be implied. We disagree,” Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hong-Ngoc Nguyen wrote in her opinion.
The ruling paves the way for thousands more lawsuits against the companies to move forward.
In March, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable for negligently designing addictive social media platforms that harm children and awarded $6 million to the lead plaintiff. TikTok and Snap were named in the complaint but settled before the trial began.
The court also denied Meta’s request to delay a trial starting Wednesday over allegations that the company collected and used children’s data illegally.