In her 52-page ruling, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers held that while Section 230 and the First Amendment do shield the social media companies from some of the plaintiffs’ claims, including certain product defect allegations, others should be allowed to proceed.įor example, Gonzalez Rogers permitted several product liability claims to move ahead that allege the companies failed to implement effective parental controls, and that they allegedly did not do enough to verify the ages of young users.
The decision is a blow to tech giants Google, Meta, Snap and TikTok, who claimed the case should be tossed out on First Amendment grounds and the argument that they are immune from liability under a hot-button legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Major social media companies must face allegations that their services addicted teen users and caused other mental health harms after a federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss the bellwether lawsuit filed by a wave of consumer plaintiffs.
