Meta can’t stop states’ $1.4 trillion lawsuit from going to trial

Meta 无法阻止各州对其发起的 1.4 万亿美元诉讼进入审判阶段

Meta and TikTok tried to defeat thousands of social media addiction lawsuits in one fell swoop, but an appeals court rejected the attempt in a ruling issued yesterday. First up among the lawsuits is a case brought against Meta by the California attorney general and other state AGs. Meta said in a July court filing that the state AGs’ demands for damages would amount to more than $1.4 trillion. A trial in district court is scheduled to start on August 19, with jury selection beginning August 12.

Meta 和 TikTok 曾试图一举驳回数千起针对其社交媒体成瘾的诉讼，但上诉法院在昨日发布的一项裁决中驳回了这一请求。在这些诉讼中，首当其冲的是加利福尼亚州总检察长及其他州总检察长对 Meta 提起的诉讼。Meta 在 7 月份的一份法庭文件中表示，各州总检察长要求的赔偿金额将超过 1.4 万亿美元。地方法院的审判定于 8 月 19 日开始，陪审团遴选工作将于 8 月 12 日启动。

In a 3-0 ruling yesterday, a judges’ panel from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the Meta and TikTok claims that they have legal immunity to the lawsuits under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. “Because Section 230 merely provides a defense to liability—not immunity from suit—we lack appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s rulings on an interlocutory basis. Therefore, we dismiss Meta’s and TikTok’s appeals,” judges wrote. They added in a footnote that “Meta’s emergency motion to stay trial pending resolution of this appeal is denied as moot.”

在昨日以 3 比 0 的投票结果作出的裁决中，美国第九巡回上诉法院的一个法官小组驳回了 Meta 和 TikTok 的主张，即他们根据《通信规范法》第 230 条享有针对此类诉讼的法律豁免权。法官们写道：“由于第 230 条仅提供责任抗辩，而非诉讼豁免权，我们缺乏对地方法院裁决进行中间上诉审查的管辖权。因此，我们驳回 Meta 和 TikTok 的上诉。”他们在脚注中补充道：“Meta 关于在本次上诉解决前暂停审判的紧急动议因失去意义而被驳回。”

Meta was the main company claiming immunity from the lawsuits. The 9th Circuit ruling said that “the TikTok entities have not independently briefed any of the issues and merely join in Meta’s arguments.” Although Section 230 limits liability for online platforms that host third-party content, Congress didn’t give companies an explicit guarantee that they will not face trials, the 9th Circuit judges’ panel said. “When Congress wants to create immunity from suit, it knows how to say so unequivocally,” judges said.

Meta 是主张享有诉讼豁免权的主要公司。第九巡回法院的裁决指出，“TikTok 实体并未就任何问题进行独立陈述，仅是加入了 Meta 的论点。”第九巡回法院的法官小组表示，尽管第 230 条限制了托管第三方内容的在线平台的责任，但国会并未明确保证这些公司不会面临审判。法官们表示：“当国会想要创设诉讼豁免权时，它知道如何明确地表达出来。”

State AGs say “Meta deceived the public” The ruling allows a trial to proceed this month over consumer protection claims brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. State attorneys general recently responded to Meta’s complaint about the amount of damages the states are seeking. “Meta’s concern over the potential size of the requested remedies rings hollow in light of the evidence the AGs will present at trial,” the state AGs said in a court filing. “The AGs will prove that Meta deceived the public about the safety of its platforms while deliberately designing them to induce compulsive use and increase revenue.”

各州总检察长称“Meta 欺骗了公众”。该裁决允许本月就加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、肯塔基州和新泽西州提出的消费者保护诉求进行审判。各州总检察长最近回应了 Meta 对各州索赔金额的抱怨。各州总检察长在法庭文件中表示：“鉴于总检察长们将在审判中提交的证据，Meta 对索赔金额潜在规模的担忧显得苍白无力。总检察长们将证明，Meta 在其平台安全性问题上欺骗了公众，同时蓄意设计平台以诱导强迫性使用并增加收入。”

Separate trials will be held in district court for the claims of other plaintiffs, including 25 other state AGs that allege violations of state consumer protection laws and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Yesterday’s 9th Circuit ruling is also a win for individuals who sued over personal-injury claims, and plaintiffs including local governments and school districts from around the country.

地方法院将为其他原告的诉求举行单独审判，其中包括另外 25 个州的总检察长，他们指控 Meta 违反了州消费者保护法和联邦《儿童在线隐私保护法》。昨日第九巡回法院的裁决对于因人身伤害而提起诉讼的个人，以及包括全国各地地方政府和学区在内的原告来说，也是一场胜利。

“The multidistrict litigation in the district court involves thousands of lawsuits alleging that Meta’s social media platforms Facebook and Instagram ‘encourage addictive behavior, fail to verify users’ ages, encourage adolescents to bypass parental controls, and inadequately safeguard against harmful content and/or intentionally amplify harmful and exploitive content,’” the ruling said. A ruling for Meta and TikTok also would have helped Google and Snapchat, because those companies are defendants in the massive litigation being held in US District Court for the Northern District of California. A Reuters article said the consolidated case includes more than 3,000 lawsuits.

裁决书称：“地方法院的多地区诉讼涉及数千起诉讼，指控 Meta 的社交媒体平台 Facebook 和 Instagram ‘鼓励成瘾行为、未能核实用户年龄、鼓励青少年绕过家长控制，以及未能充分防范有害内容和/或蓄意放大有害及剥削性内容’。”如果 Meta 和 TikTok 胜诉，也将对 Google 和 Snapchat 有利，因为这些公司也是在美国加利福尼亚北区联邦地区法院进行的这场大规模诉讼中的被告。路透社的一篇文章称，该合并案件包括 3,000 多起诉讼。

Meta appealed before final judgment. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers mostly denied a Meta motion to dismiss in an order in October 2024. As Gonzalez Rogers wrote, the case consolidates “actions brought on behalf of children and adolescents, school districts and local government entities, and state attorneys general alleging that several social media companies—Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, ByteDance’s TikTok, and Snapchat—designed their platforms to foster compulsive use by minors, resulting in a variety of harms to children, local governments, and the public health.”

Meta 在最终判决前提出上诉。美国地方法官 Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers 在 2024 年 10 月的一项命令中基本驳回了 Meta 的撤诉动议。正如 Gonzalez Rogers 所写，该案合并了“代表儿童和青少年、学区和地方政府实体以及州总检察长提起的诉讼，指控几家社交媒体公司——Meta 的 Facebook 和 Instagram、Google 的 YouTube、字节跳动的 TikTok 和 Snapchat——设计其平台以助长未成年人的强迫性使用，导致对儿童、地方政府和公共卫生的各种伤害。”

Gonzalez Rogers imposed some limits on the plaintiffs’ claims, finding that “Section 230 insulates the design and deployment of most features alleged to be unfair or unconscionable.” But she declined “to dismiss at this stage theories of liability predicated on a failure-to-warn of known risks of addiction attendant to any platform features or as to platform construction in general.”

Gonzalez Rogers 对原告的诉求施加了一些限制，认为“第 230 条保护了大多数被指控为不公平或不合情理的功能的设计和部署。”但她拒绝“在现阶段驳回那些基于未能警告平台功能所带来的已知成瘾风险，或基于平台整体构建的责任理论。”

The denial of Meta’s motion to dismiss is called an “interlocutory order” because it’s not a final judgment in the case. Interlocutory decisions generally can’t be appealed immediately, but there are exceptions. Meta claimed that rulings denying Section 230 immunity are “collateral orders” and thus can be appealed before a case has a final judgment. But Meta needed to show, among other things, that the district court’s decision is “effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.”

驳回 Meta 的撤诉动议被称为“中间命令”，因为它不是案件的最终判决。中间裁决通常不能立即上诉，但也有例外。Meta 声称，拒绝第 230 条豁免权的裁决属于“附带命令”，因此可以在案件最终判决前提出上诉。但 Meta 需要证明，除其他事项外，地方法院的决定在“最终判决后的上诉中实际上是无法审查的”。

Judges deny immunity. Meta argued that the 9th Circuit itself “has repeatedly held that Section 230 confers immunity from suit.” The judges’ panel acknowledged that the court has “used the phrase ‘immunity’ somewhat loosely in our section 230 jurisprudence,” but said that word usage is not binding, “because we have never addressed whether the denial of a section 230 defense is a collateral order.”

法官拒绝豁免权。Meta 辩称，第九巡回法院本身“一再裁定第 230 条赋予了诉讼豁免权”。法官小组承认，法院在“第 230 条的判例中对‘豁免权’一词的使用有些随意”，但表示这种用词并不具有约束力，“因为我们从未讨论过拒绝第 230 条抗辩是否属于附带命令。”

“Only the Tenth Circuit has squarely addressed the issue before us, and it concluded that section 230 ‘provides immunity from liability, not suit, and [a] district court’s order [denying immunity] does not qualify under the collateral order doctrine,’” the 9th Circuit decision said. The law does not have an explicit guarantee that a trial will not occur, and immunity from lawsuits is a benefit usually reserved for government officials, the court said, agreeing with the 10th Circuit analysis. “Therefore, we hold that Section 230 provides a defense to liability, not immunity from suit, and an order denying this defense can b…”

第九巡回法院的裁决称：“只有第十巡回法院直接处理过我们面前的这个问题，其结论是第 230 条‘提供的是责任豁免，而非诉讼豁免，且地方法院（拒绝豁免的）命令不符合附带命令原则’。”法院同意第十巡回法院的分析，称法律并没有明确保证不会发生审判，而诉讼豁免权通常是留给政府官员的福利。“因此，我们裁定第 230 条提供的是责任抗辩，而非诉讼豁免，且拒绝此项抗辩的命令可以……”