Two recent jury verdicts in U.S. courts have placed Meta and Alphabet’s Google at the center of a legal contest over whether platforms can be held responsible for harms to young users stemming from how the services are designed.
In California, a Los Angeles jury on Wednesday concluded that Meta and Google were liable for a young woman’s depression and suicidal thoughts after she testified that she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube at a young age. The jury ordered the two companies to pay a combined $6 million in damages.
Separately, in New Mexico, jurors on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company had misled users about the safety of its services for young people and had enabled sexual exploitation of children on its platforms.
Both verdicts are notable because the plaintiffs avoided the primary legal defense used by online platforms in such cases - Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - by framing their claims not as complaints about third-party speech but as allegations tied to the companies’ design and operational choices. Section 230, enacted in 1996, generally shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, but these trials focused instead on whether decisions about how platforms function can be the basis for liability.
"Courts are increasingly trying to distinguish claims about platform functionality or platform conduct from claims that would really just impose liability for third-party speech," said Gregory Dickinson, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law who studies tech and the law.
In both trials, the defendants urged judges to dismiss the lawsuits early, arguing Section 230 protected them. Judges in each case rejected those motions, allowing juries to decide the matters. Meta has said it will appeal both verdicts. A Meta spokesperson declined further comment beyond confirming the company plans to appeal. Google said it plans to appeal the Los Angeles verdict and did not immediately reply to a request for further comment.
The appeals that follow are expected to center on the reach of Section 230 and could have consequences that go well beyond social media. Meta, Google, Snap Inc and ByteDance face thousands of similar lawsuits in state and federal courts asserting that platform design choices have contributed to a mental health crisis among teenagers and young people. More than 2,400 cases have been centralized before a single judge in federal court in California, and thousands more are consolidated in California state court.
Legal observers note that lower courts have been moving toward a narrower interpretation of Section 230, with several rulings concluding that claims about platform design or conduct are not shielded by the statute. However, no appellate court has yet issued a binding decision on those theories, and appellate rulings would carry wider force than trial court decisions.
"I think the internet is on trial, not social media," said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, warning that successful legal theories could be deployed against other kinds of online services.
Indeed, litigation already extends beyond traditional social networks. More than 130 federal lawsuits are pending against Roblox Corporation, accusing the gaming platform of failing to protect users from sexual exploitation; Roblox denies the claims. Observers say an appellate ruling that narrows Section 230 protections for platform design or conduct could affect lawsuits targeting any online service where children interact with user-generated content.
Appeals in the two recent cases will begin in state appellate courts. If those courts issue rulings that do not resolve the legal questions definitively, the disputes could travel further through the judicial system. The U.S. Supreme Court has previously shown an interest in the issue: it heard a related challenge involving Google’s video service in 2023 but avoided a substantive ruling on the legal protections for internet companies, and in 2024 it declined to take up an appeal in a separate case involving Snapchat. Two justices dissented from that refusal, expressing concern that further delay would postpone judicial resolution of Section 230’s scope. In their dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch wrote that "Social-media platforms have increasingly used (Section) 230 as a get-out-of-jail free card."
Advocates pursuing such litigation see the recent verdicts as potential openings for higher courts to settle how far Section 230 extends. Meetali Jain, director of the Tech Justice Law Project, said she believes the Supreme Court may now be ready to address the statute’s boundaries. "I personally think that the Supreme Court is even ready for a case like this, for the right case," she said.
Where these appeals ultimately land will shape the legal landscape for platforms large and small. If appellate panels or the Supreme Court endorse the approach used by plaintiffs in these trials - distinguishing platform design claims from content-based immunity - online services that host user-created content could face expanded exposure to litigation alleging harms to young users.
For now, the immediate consequence is that two sizable jury awards stand and will be challenged on appeal. The rulings represent an early legal test of whether design-focused liability theories can succeed in court, and they set up a sequence of appeals likely to determine the contours of platform immunity in the years ahead.
Separately, consumer- and litigation-focused groups continue to bring suits alleging that platform operation, features, and safety-related representations affected youth outcomes. How appellate courts rule on the interplay between Section 230 and claims about platform functionality will influence the pace and character of such litigation across the technology, media, and online services sectors.
Advertising and subscription revenue models, content moderation practices, product safety features, and legal strategies for tech companies are among the operational areas that may be scrutinized as the legal fights proceed. Companies and investors will be watching how appellate courts interpret the statute, as those decisions could affect the exposure and obligations of a broad set of internet businesses.
Meanwhile, some market-facing commentary has leveraged the litigation backdrop into investment questions. For example, a separate investment service promotional blurb referenced GOOGL and suggested using an AI-driven model to evaluate whether the stock appears attractive relative to fundamentals and momentum, citing past picks as examples. Such commercial materials highlight how litigation developments can feed into investor analysis and market narratives.
The coming appeals thus have legal significance and broader implications for platform governance, litigation risk, and how online services are operated and monetized.