"Meta Platforms' claim to blanket immunity from youth addiction litigation landed with little traction before Massachusetts' top appeals court, with justices pressing the Instagram parent on how its features qualify as protectable publishing activity."
"The oral arguments Friday before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court marked the first state high court to hear Meta's claim to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for claims that it fueled youth addiction to Instagram through decisions that one justice described as feeding into teens' "fear of missing out.""
""It's not a way to publish," said Associate Justice Scott L. Kafker. "It's how to attract the eyeballs. It's indifferent to content, right? It doesn't care if its Thomas Paine's Common Sense or nonsense. It's just, it's totally focused on getting you to look at it.""
"The Massachusetts litigation, brought by its attorney general Andrea Campbell (D), targets Instagram's incessant notifications and alerts, infinite scroll and autoplay elements, disappearing ephemeral posts, and intermittent variable reward programming as features designed to hook youth with dopamine hits."
Massachusetts justices questioned Meta's assertion that Section 230 provides blanket immunity for claims that Instagram's design decisions caused youth addiction. The attorney general alleges that notifications, infinite scroll, autoplay, disappearing posts, and variable reward programming were engineered to hook teens and amplify fear of missing out. A trial court previously rejected Meta's argument that those design features were protected publishing decisions under Section 230 and the First Amendment. The high court pressed Meta to explain how product-design choices qualify as publishing or republication of third-party content. The case mirrors broader litigation against major social platforms in federal appeals courts.
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