‘Meta must face US state lawsuits over teen social media addiction’

WASHINGTON: Facebook parent company Meta META.O must face lawsuits by US states accusing it of encouraging social media addiction among teens, a federal judge in California ruled on Tuesday.

Oakland-based US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Meta’s bid to toss the claims made by the states in two separate lawsuits filed last year, one including more than 30 states and the other including only Florida.

The company had argued that federal law blocked some of the claims and that the states failed to point to misleading statements that it had made.

The judge put some limits on the claims that the states - numbering more than 30 in all - could pursue, but allowed the case to go forward largely intact. The judge also rejected the social media company’s motion to dismiss some claims over social media addiction brought by individual plaintiffs.

The states are asking the court for injunctions against Meta’s allegedly illegal business practices and are seeking unspecified monetary damages. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by various plaintiffs against Meta, ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet’s GOOGL.O YouTube, accusing the companies of designing addictive algorithms that led to anxiety, depression and body-image issues among adolescents, and failing to warn of their risks.