Kids Suing Social Media Over Addiction Find a Win Amid Losses
Minors and parents suing Meta Inc.'s Facebook and other technology giants for the kids' social media platform addictions won an important ruling advancing their collection of lawsuits in a California court.
A state judge on Friday threw out most of the claims but said she'll allow the lawsuits to advance based on a claim that the companies were negligent – or knew that the design of their platforms would maximize minors' use and prove harmful. The plaintiffs argue Social Media is designed to be addictive, causing depression, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders, and suicide.
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More than 200 such suits filed across the country have been assigned to two judges in California — one in state court in Los Angeles and the other in federal court in Oakland. Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl's ruling applies only to the cases in state court. Her decision is part of a larger battle in which statewide social media bans pit concerns about privacy and national security against personal freedoms and the use of wildly popular apps – especially among young users.
In the California case, lawyers representing minors cleared a legal hurdle that allows them to pursue a claim that Facebook, Instagram, Snap Inc., TikTok Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s YouTube knew that the physical harms of social media were “foreseeable and substantial,” Kuhl wrote her the ruling. The judge pointed to the “obvious inequality” between “unsophisticated minors” and the internet companies “who exercised total control over how their platforms functioned.”
Internet companies have long relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal statute that has consistently shielded them from liability over comments, ads, pictures and videos
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