Social media giant Meta Platforms must face a lawsuit by the state of Massachusetts alleging that it knowingly designed its Instagram platform to be harmful to children and has misled the public that it is safe.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last Friday ruled that a federal law (Section 230) that shields Internet firms from liability for content posted on their sites does not shield Meta from a lawsuit relating to the features in the design of Instagram that the state alleges harm children’s mental health.

Meta had moved to have the Bay State’s lawsuit dismissed, as it has tried to defeat others with similar allegations. Meta has argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act grants social media firms immunity and bars the claims. The company maintains that its design features are the same as content.

A state Superior Court judge denied Meta’s motion. Meta appealed but the high court has now upheld the lower court.

“The claims do not seek to impose liability on Meta for information provided by third parties. Instead, the claims allege harm stemming from Meta’s own conduct either by designing a social media platform that capitalizes on the developmental vulnerabilities of children or by affirmatively misleading consumers about the safety of the Instagram platform,” Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote for the high court.

Thus, at least at this preliminary stage of the litigation, Meta has not shown it is entitled to the protection provided by Section 230, the court concluded.

The ruling is the third recent loss for the technology industry. A California jury awarded $6 million in damages a few weeks ago to a woman who claimed she became addicted to Meta’s Instagram and YouTube as a child. Also, on March 24, a New Mexico jury hit Meta with $375 million in civil penalties after finding that Meta violated the state’s consumer protection law by misleading users about the safety of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and of enabling child sexual exploitation on those platforms.

Meta, Google, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of lawsuits in state and federal courts tying their designs to a mental health crisis for teens and young people.

The Massachusetts lawsuit seeks to apply the state’s consumer protection statute that prohibits unfair and deceptive business practices. It alleges that in its pursuit of maximizing advertising profit, Meta designed the Instagram platform to induce compulsive use by children and deliberately misled the public about the safety of the platform by “deceptively claiming that it excludes users under the age of 13 who are acutely harmed by Instagram’s addictive features.” The state also alleges the tech firm has created a public nuisance by engaging in these unfair and deceptive practices.

The complaint is critical of multiple design features. They include a barrage of notifications that alert users to activity on Instagram even when they are not using the platform and an “infinite scroll” that delivers a never-ending stream of posts and advertisements to a user.

“There is no escaping the fact that social media platforms have contributed to the mental health crisis amongst our young people,” commented Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell on the state’s high court opinion in support of her office’s lawsuit.

According to court documents, Instagram is used by more than 33 million young people, including more than 300,000 daily active users in the Massachusetts from the age of 13 to 17. Instagram enables users to post images and videos and interact with other users.

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Lawsuits
Massachusetts