A US federal appeals court has ruled that more than 3,000 lawsuits accusing Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap and other social media companies of deliberately making their platforms addictive to children can move forward.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, issued the decision on Monday. The lawsuits were brought by states, cities, school districts and individual families.
The suits accuse the platforms of designing their products to keep children engaged for as long as possible, making it easy for minors to bypass parental controls, and exposing them to harmful content. A related case in New Mexico state court accused Meta of misleading users about platform safety and enabling child sexual exploitation. A judge in that case ordered Meta to pay $ 375 million in civil penalties, later increasing the total by $ 567 million and requiring stricter age verification and usage limits.
In a separate bellwether trial in Los Angeles in March, a jury found Meta and Google negligent in the design of Instagram and YouTube. The jury awarded a 20-year-old woman who developed depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia after childhood use of both platforms. TikTok and Snap had already settled with her before the trial began.
Meta and TikTok had asked the appeals court to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields them from being sued over content posted by users. The 9th Circuit rejected that argument.
Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, writing a 24-page opinion for the panel, said Section 230 offers companies a defense against liability but does not grant blanket immunity from litigation. At oral arguments in January, she had already signaled doubt about the companies’ position, stating:
“When Congress wants to give immunity from suit, it knows how to say that.”
The court did not decide whether Section 230 ultimately protects the companies from claims about how they designed their products. It ruled only that the appeal was premature, since the trial court had not yet issued a final decision. That underlying question is expected to shape other cases against tech firms in the future.
The panel also rejected Meta’s request to delay a separate trial, due to begin Wednesday, over allegations brought by 29 US states that the company collected data from children to keep them on its platforms and misrepresented its safety practices to parents.
Recently, national governments have been regulating how social media platforms treat young users. Australia enforced a nationwide ban on social media accounts for children under 16 starting in December 2025. France, Denmark and the United Kingdom have introduced or proposed similar age restrictions, and the European Union has built an age verification tool for member states.
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The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, led by Minister Bosun Tijani, opened a public consultation on age restrictions for social media on March 10, 2026, through the Nigerian Data Protection Commission. More than 40 million Nigerians spend an average of six hours daily on social media, raising concern about children’s exposure to cyberbullying, online grooming, and addictive platform features.
A government survey also found that 93.5 percent of Nigerians expressed strong concern about children’s safety on social media. A bill on the matter is currently awaiting consideration in the Nigerian Senate following the consultation.
