US appeals court lets 3,000 social media addiction suits proceed
What's next: A multistate trial against Meta was cleared to start Aug. 12 after judges rejected its bid for a delay.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed thousands of lawsuits accusing major social media companies of addicting young users to keep moving forward. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 10 that Meta Platforms and ByteDance's TikTok appealed too early when they tried to overturn a lower-court decision in the sprawling litigation. The judges said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act offers a defense against liability, not immunity from being sued. The decision affects more than 3,000 cases against Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap. The court also rejected Meta's effort to postpone a trial set to begin Aug. 12 in a lawsuit by 29 state attorneys general over children's data practices and youth safety claims.