Meta faces a Massachusetts social media addiction lawsuit

BOSTON: Meta Platforms is facing a Massachusetts lawsuit alleging the social media company intentionally rolled out features on its Instagram platform to hook young users and misled the public about the dangers. for the mental health of teenagers, a judge ruled.

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp in Boston, in a decision made public Friday, rejected Meta’s request to dismiss Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s claims that it violated the law state consumer protection and created a public nuisance.

The company argued that the state’s case was barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a federal law that broadly protects Internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by users.

Krupp said the law did not apply to the false statements Meta allegedly made about Instagram’s safety, its efforts to protect the well-being of its young users or its age verification systems to ensure that children under the age of 13 stay off the platform.

He said allegations about the negative impacts of Instagram’s design features were also not barred because the state “primarily sought to hold Meta accountable for its own business conduct,” not content posted by third parties.

Meta and a spokesman for Campbell had no immediate comment. Meta has denied wrongdoing, saying it has developed numerous tools to support parents and teenagers who use Instagram.

The ruling came days after a federal judge in California on Tuesday rejected a request by the operator of Facebook and Instagram to dismiss lawsuits from more than 30 states that accuse it of fueling mental health problems among teenagers making their social media platforms addictive.

Massachusetts was one of the few states that filed separate claims in state, rather than federal, courts when it sued in October 2023.

It became one of the most high-profile lawsuits because of allegations it first aired about how CEO Mark Zuckerberg had dismissed concerns that some aspects of Instagram could have a harmful effect on its users.

The lawsuit alleged that Instagram features such as push notifications, “likes” on user posts and endless scrolling were designed to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities of teenagers and their “fear of missing out.”

The state claimed internal data showed the platform was addictive and harming children, but senior executives rejected changes that their research showed would improve teenagers’ well-being.