A US federal appeals court has dismissed appeals by Meta and TikTok challenging lower-court rulings that allowed claims in thousands of lawsuits alleging harm to young social media users to proceed.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that it lacked jurisdiction to review the lower court’s decisions at this stage of the litigation.
“Section 230 merely provides a defence to liability, not immunity from suit,” Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote for the panel.
The court consequently dismissed appeals brought by Meta Platforms and TikTok entities, along with conditional cross-appeals filed by groups of plaintiffs.
The decision allows the consolidated federal litigation to continue but does not determine whether the plaintiffs’ allegations are true or whether the technology companies will ultimately be held liable.
The multidistrict litigation includes lawsuits brought by individuals, state attorneys general, school districts and local governments.
Plaintiffs allege that social media platforms were designed in ways that encouraged addictive behaviour among children and adolescents, failed to verify users’ ages, allowed young people to bypass parental controls and inadequately protected them from harmful content.
According to the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, 3,137 cases were pending in the consolidated proceeding as of August 3. A total of 3,312 cases have been included since the litigation began.
The cases are being managed by Chief US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California.
Defendants named across the litigation include Meta, Google and YouTube parent Alphabet, TikTok owner ByteDance and Snapchat parent Snap.
Section 230 dispute
Meta sought to dismiss several categories of claims by invoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally prevents online services from being treated as the publishers or speakers of content created by third parties.
The District Court granted Meta’s motions in part but allowed other claims to proceed. It found that Section 230 barred some allegations involving platform features tied to the companies’ role as publishers of third-party content but did not require dismissal of all claims.
Meta argued that the partial rejection of its Section 230 defence could be appealed immediately because the law provided immunity from suit.
TikTok joined Meta’s arguments without separately briefing the issues, according to the appeals court’s opinion.
The 9th Circuit rejected the argument, finding that Section 230 protects companies from liability in qualifying circumstances but does not give them a right to avoid the litigation process altogether.
The court said Meta could challenge the District Court’s Section 230 rulings after a final judgment is issued.
It also noted that the lower court had allowed certain failure-to-warn claims to proceed “for now” because the litigation remained at an early stage and the relevant law was still developing.
The appeals court also denied as moot Meta’s emergency request to halt an upcoming trial while its appeal was being considered.
Jury selection in a multistate attorneys general case against Meta is scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Oakland, California, with opening statements set for August 18.
The case alleges that Meta violated federal and state laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, by designing and deploying features on Facebook and Instagram that allegedly harmed children and teenagers or encouraged compulsive use. Meta disputes the allegations.
