The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court delivered a significant ruling Friday, determining that Meta Platforms cannot escape a lawsuit brought by the state’s attorney general over claims the company intentionally created addictive features targeting young users on Facebook and Instagram.
This landmark decision represents the first instance where a state’s highest court has examined whether federal legislation protecting internet companies from user-generated content lawsuits would also shield them from accusations of deliberately creating addiction among minors.
Meta has rejected these accusations and maintains the company implements comprehensive measures to protect teenagers and young people using its social media platforms.
The court’s ruling follows significant legal developments, including a Los Angeles jury’s March 25 verdict finding both Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet liable for creating social media platforms that harm young users. That case resulted in a $6 million award to a 20-year-old woman who claimed childhood social media addiction.
One day before that verdict, another jury determined Meta owed $375 million in civil penalties in a New Mexico attorney general’s lawsuit alleging the company misled users about platform safety and allowed child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram.
Thirty-four additional states are pursuing comparable federal court cases against Meta. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat, filed her state court case as part of at least nine similar lawsuits state attorneys general have initiated since 2023, including one filed Wednesday by Iowa’s Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird.
Campbell’s legal action initially attracted attention due to allegations about CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s dismissive attitude toward concerns about Instagram’s potentially harmful effects on users.
The lawsuit claimed Instagram features including push notifications, post “likes,” and endless scrolling were specifically engineered to exploit teenagers’ psychological weaknesses and capitalize on their “fear of missing out.”
State officials alleged that internal company data demonstrated the platform was causing addiction and harm to children, while senior executives refused to implement changes that research indicated would benefit teen users’ mental health.
The California-based Meta attempted to dismiss the Massachusetts lawsuit by invoking Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, federal legislation that broadly protects internet companies from lawsuits related to user-posted content.
Massachusetts argued Section 230 doesn’t cover what the state characterized as Meta’s false statements regarding Instagram’s safety, the company’s youth protection efforts, or its age-verification systems designed to keep children under 13 off the platform.
A lower court judge supported this position, ruling the law also didn’t apply to allegations about Instagram’s harmful design features because the state was “principally seeking to hold Meta liable for its own business conduct,” rather than third-party content.
