IN RE: SOCIAL MEDIA ADOLESCENT ADDICTION/PERSONAL INJURY PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION
Issue
In *In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation*, Meta Platforms argues that evidence showing it *could have* adopted different age-verification systems, content-moderation practices, or platform-access controls is both legally irrelevant and independently barred by Section 230 and the First Amendment. The question is whether those three legal doctrines — operating together as a pre-trial evidentiary shield — can prevent a jury from ever hearing expert testimony about safer design alternatives, even in a government consumer-protection action premised on Meta's own statements and conduct rather than its handling of third-party content.
What Happened
Meta filed this Motion in Limine No. 2 on June 9, 2026, in the California Attorney General subtrack of MDL No. 3047, with a hearing set before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on June 26, 2026. The motion seeks a pre-trial order excluding all evidence, argument, and expert testimony suggesting Meta should have implemented different safety, age-verification, or moderation practices. Meta advances three independent grounds: that such evidence is irrelevant under FRE 401–403 because the AGs' claims turn on what Meta actually said and did; that Section 230 immunizes age-gating and moderation choices as protected "publisher decisions" under *Doe v. Grindr* (9th Cir. 2025); and that the First Amendment, as interpreted in *Moody v. NetChoice* (2024), forecloses evidence compelling Meta to justify its editorial and access-restriction choices. The motion specifically targets six named experts — Alter, Estes, Sheatsley, Gray, Iyer, and Bejar — seeking to exclude their opinions in their entirety on all three grounds simultaneously.
Why It Matters
Meta is asking the court to block, before trial begins, the evidentiary foundation the California AG would use to show that Meta's conduct was unreasonable — the equivalent of barring a products-liability plaintiff from presenting evidence that a safer design existed. If granted, even partially, this ruling would signal that Section 230 and the First Amendment can together preempt the expert toolkit in state government enforcement actions, with immediate consequences for every AG suit currently pending against social media platforms. The motion also advances a largely untested procedural theory: that Section 230 can function as an *in limine* evidentiary bar, not merely a pleading-stage immunity — a doctrinal expansion that no circuit has squarely endorsed. Judge Gonzalez Rogers's ruling will be closely watched as a potential bellwether on whether platforms can use constitutional and statutory shields to hollow out liability cases without ever reaching a merits trial.
Related Filings
Other proceedings in the same litigation tracked by this monitor.
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