US court rules Meta, other tech firms must face thousands of lawsuits over social media addiction

A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, ByteDance’s TikTok and Snap Inc’s Snapchat over claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit ​Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by Meta and TikTok seeking to overturn a lower court ruling requiring them to face more than 3,000 lawsuits filed in federal court, saying the companies had appealed too early.