Meta faces youth lawsuits

Meta just lost an early bid to kill a Massachusetts case that says Instagram was built to hook children, and the ruling came from the state’s highest court on April 10, 2026. The judges said the lawsuit can keep going instead of being blocked at the starting line. (usnews.com) The key legal fight was over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the law internet companies usually use like a shield when they are sued over user posts. Massachusetts argued this case is different because it targets Meta’s product design and its own statements about safety, not just content uploaded by users. (usnews.com) (mass.gov) Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed the case in October 2023 under the state consumer protection law. Her office said Meta designed Instagram to addict young users and repeatedly misled the public about the risks of heavy use. (mass.gov) The complaint names specific features instead of talking in vague terms. It points to infinite scroll, near-constant notifications, autoplay for Stories and Reels, “likes,” and reward patterns the state compared to slot machines. (mass.gov) The state says those features were not accidental extras but engagement tools aimed at keeping teenagers on the app longer. The lawsuit also says Meta knew from internal research that these design choices could harm teens and still kept them in place. (mass.gov) (usnews.com) This ruling lands after two expensive courtroom losses for Meta in late March. On March 25, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent in a case brought by a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child, and the jury awarded $6 million. (usnews.com) (money.usnews.com) A day before that Reuters report on Meta’s ad policy, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties in a case accusing the company of misleading users about safety and enabling child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram. Those back-to-back verdicts gave fresh momentum to the wider litigation campaign. (usnews.com) (money.usnews.com) The scale is already huge. Reuters reported more than 3,300 addiction cases are pending in California state court, and another 2,400 lawsuits by individuals, school districts, cities, and states have been grouped in federal court in California. (money.usnews.com) At the same time, Meta has started removing Facebook and Instagram ads bought by law firms looking for under-18 users to join these cases. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company was “actively defending” itself and would not let trial lawyers use its platforms to profit from lawsuits claiming the platforms are harmful. (money.usnews.com) (axios.com) So Meta is now fighting on two fronts at once. In court, it is trying to stop claims that Instagram’s design harmed children, and on its own apps, it is trying to stop lawyers from using Meta’s ad system to find the next wave of plaintiffs. (usnews.com) (money.usnews.com) The Massachusetts decision does not say Meta is liable yet. It says the company cannot use Section 230 to end this case before the evidence is tested, which means one of the biggest legal questions in the youth social media fight just moved from theory into discovery and trial prep. (usnews.com) (mass.gov)