Meta Platforms Inc. META, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been directed to face lawsuits filed by U.S. states.
What Happened: On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in California rejected Meta’s attempt to dismiss the claims made in two separate lawsuits filed last year, reported Reuters.
The lawsuits involving over 30 states, including California, New York, and Florida, accuse Meta of contributing to mental health issues among teenagers by making its platforms addictive.
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Judge Rogers partly agreed with Meta’s argument that Section 230, a federal law regulating online platforms, provides some protection to the company.
However, she found that the states had provided enough detail about allegedly misleading statements made by Meta to proceed with most of their case, the report noted.
The judge also rejected motions from Meta, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL, and Snap Inc.’s SNAP Snapchat seeking to dismiss personal injury lawsuits brought by individual plaintiffs.
These firms are not named as defendants in the lawsuits filed by the states.
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Why It Matters: This ruling comes in the wake of increasing concerns about the impact of social media on mental health.
Earlier in August, a man from Montreal, Canada, filed a lawsuit against social networking platforms YouTube, Facebook, Reddit RDDT, Instagram, and TikTok, claiming they cause addiction and harm mental health.
Last month, Arkansas sued YouTube and its parent company, Alphabet, accusing it of fueling a mental health crisis among youth and being deliberately addictive.
Previously, a lawsuit was also filed against gaming platform Roblox Corp RBLX, underscoring how platforms combining gaming and social media can also contribute to addiction.
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