A US court refused to dismiss a lawsuit by 29 states arguing Facebook and Instagram were built to keep young people scrolling. Meta strongly denies the claims and has not been found liable.
A federal judge has refused to throw out a major lawsuit accusing Meta of building Facebook and Instagram to keep children and teenagers hooked.
The ruling does not mean Meta has lost the case or been found responsible for harm. The company asked the court to dismiss the claims before trial, a request known as a motion to dismiss, and the judge refused. That decision clears the way for the case to move closer to a jury.
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who sits in Oakland, California, rejected Meta’s bid to dismiss claims involving deception, unfair business practices, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law known as COPPA, Reuters reported.
The case was brought by 29 US state attorneys general. They argue that Meta designed its apps to encourage compulsive use among young people, and that it was not fully open with the public about the possible effects on children and teens.
In a written decision, the judge said several questions should be left for a jury to settle. Those include whether the platforms are addictive, whether Meta falsely denied designing them that way, and whether the apps were partly aimed at children.
On the privacy claim, the judge went a step further. COPPA gives parents a say over the personal information that online services can collect from children under 13. The court found it was not in dispute that Meta failed to meet the law’s notice and parental-consent rules, and it handed the states a partial win on that point.
Meta sees the case very differently. The company said it “strongly disagree[s]” with the allegations and is confident the evidence will show its long-standing commitment to supporting young people.
Meta has also argued that “social media addiction” is not a recognized medical diagnosis, so earlier statements that its apps are not addictive cannot be treated as false. The company says it built Facebook and Instagram for a general audience, not specifically for children under 13.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the officials behind the lawsuit, called the decision a “critical win” in the effort to hold Meta accountable, Arab News reported.
For parents, the case touches a question many recognize from home. When a child keeps scrolling, refreshing, and checking for notifications, is that only about willpower, or are the apps themselves built to make stopping hard?
That question is central to a growing number of lawsuits. For years, much of the worry about children online focused on the content they might see. These cases focus instead on how the platforms work: endless scrolling, recommendation systems, autoplay, likes, and notifications that can pull young users back again and again.
The distinction matters for families everywhere, not only in the United States. The design choices being examined in these courts are the same ones built into apps used by children around the world.
The Meta ruling is one part of a wider set of legal challenges facing technology companies. More than 2,600 individuals, school districts, and local governments have filed related claims, which Judge Gonzalez Rogers also oversees.
Other recent decisions have not gone Meta’s way. In May, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the company’s appeal in a separate case brought by Vermont’s attorney general, which also accused Instagram of being addictive to young users. That allowed the Vermont case to continue.
Earlier this month, a California state judge refused to grant Meta and Google’s YouTube a new trial after a Los Angeles jury found both companies negligent in a case brought by a young woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. The jury had awarded $6 million in damages. Both companies say they plan to appeal.
A separate trial involving claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey is scheduled for August 18, according to court records.
For families, none of this will change how Facebook or Instagram works tomorrow. The legal process is slow, and Meta has said it will keep defending itself, including on appeal.
What the case does is add pressure on social media companies to explain how their products are built, what they understood internally about the effects on young users, and whether parents are given enough information to make real choices.
For now, the message from the court is narrow but clear. Meta will not be allowed to make these claims disappear before they are tested in full.
