New York.– Meta, Facebook’s parent company, must face lawsuits from United States states that accuse it of promoting addiction to social networks among adolescents, a federal judge in California ruled this Tuesday.
Yvonne González Rogers, a federal district judge based in Oakland, rejected Meta’s attempt to dismiss claims brought by states in two separate lawsuits filed last year, one of which included more than 30 states and the other of which only Florida.
The company had argued that federal law blocked some of the complaints and that states had failed to point out misleading statements on their part. The judge placed some limits on the lawsuits that states — more than 30 in all — could bring, but allowed the case to move forward largely intact. He also denied the company’s motion to dismiss some social media addiction lawsuits filed by individual plaintiffs.
The states ask the court for injunctive relief against Meta’s allegedly illegal business practices and seek unspecified damages.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Several plaintiffs have filed hundreds of lawsuits against Meta, ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube, accusing the companies of designing addictive algorithms that cause anxiety, depression and body image problems among teenagers, and of failing to warn of their risks.
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