People of the State of California v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
STATEMENT OF RECENT DECISION pursuant to Civil Local… — Attachment 294
Issue: In *People of California v. Meta Platforms*, the State Attorneys General argue that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not immunize Meta from state consumer protection claims targeting the company's own design choices and business practices — as opposed to its role in publishing third-party content. The question is legally contested because Section 230(e)(3) expressly preempts state laws "inconsistent with" its immunity provisions, and the Ninth Circuit has historically read that bar broadly, leaving unresolved how far it extends to claims framed around a platform's independent conduct rather than its editorial functions.
Days before a scheduled April 15, 2026 hearing on Meta's pending Motion for Summary Judgment, the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey filed a Statement of Recent Decision pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-3(d)(2), submitting as Exhibit A the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's April 10, 2026 opinion in *Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.*, No. SJC-13747. The filing is a procedural notice, not a substantive brief, and contains no quotation or textual analysis of the SJC opinion — the opinion itself is attached and left to speak. Plaintiffs' position is that the SJC, a court of last resort, held that Section 230 does not bar state consumer protection claims against Meta, and that this ruling constitutes directly on-point persuasive authority the MDL court should consider when ruling on Meta's summary judgment motion. The filing asks for no independent relief; it asks only that the Court take notice of the opinion.
Meta's central defense at summary judgment is that Section 230 extinguishes the states' consumer protection claims before they can reach a jury, on the theory that those claims would effectively hold Meta liable as a publisher of harmful user-generated content. The Massachusetts Supreme Court — one of the most respected state courts of last resort in the country — just rejected that argument in a case involving the same defendant and a structurally similar legal theory, and Plaintiffs are placing that ruling before the MDL judge at the earliest opportunity. Whether it moves the needle depends on how closely the Massachusetts claims and pleadings track those at issue in the MDL, a question the filing conspicuously leaves unaddressed and that Meta will almost certainly contest. The filing also signals a deliberate multi-forum strategy by the state AGs: collecting appellate-level authority across jurisdictions to build persuasive momentum against Section 230 preemption — a campaign worth watching as similar litigation proceeds in other states.
STATEMENT OF RECENT DECISION pursuant to Civil Local…
Issue: Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.* asks whether Section 230(c)(1) immunizes Meta from state consumer protection and public nuisance claims premised on Instagram's addictive design features — infinite scroll, autoplay, and variable-reward notifications — and on Meta's own public misrepresentations about youth safety, arising from evidence that Meta possessed internal data confirming harm to adolescents while representing the platform as safe. The question is non-obvious because courts have disagreed sharply on whether platform architecture choices are inseparable from the editorial function of publishing third-party content, which would bring them within Section 230's immunity, or whether they are independent conduct that the statute was never meant to reach.
Four plaintiff-states (California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey) filed this Statement of Recent Decision on April 13, 2026, under Civil Local Rule 7-3(d), to place before the Court a newly issued opinion directly relevant to Meta's pending motion to dismiss (Related Doc. 266). The attached opinion is *Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.*, decided April 10, 2026, by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — that state's highest court — affirming the Superior Court's denial of Meta's motion to dismiss on all four counts. The SJC held that Section 230 immunity does not extend to claims grounded in a platform's own design choices or its own deceptive statements, articulating a formal two-element test: a barred claim must allege both a dissemination act and liability grounded in the harmful character of third-party content. Because design-defect claims are content-neutral on their face — the alleged harm from addictive architecture operates regardless of what any user posts — and because Meta's misrepresentations are the platform's own speech rather than third-party content, neither category satisfies both elements. The SJC expressly identified and declined to follow this MDL court's prior rulings at 702 and 753 F. Supp. 3d, finding them inconsistent with common-law publisher principles and Section 230's legislative history.
The opinion is the most prominent state appellate-court decision to date to categorically hold that Section 230 does not immunize platform design-defect or product-deception claims, and it does so through a textually grounded, common-law publisher framework that is methodologically distinct from — and directly contests — the reasoning this MDL court has previously applied. By naming and rejecting the MDL court's prior rulings, the SJC supplies a reasoned, appellate-level counter-analysis that, while not binding in federal court, materially reduces those rulings' persuasive authority and gives this Court a fully developed alternative framework to consider when resolving the pending motion. The procedural holding — that Section 230 immunity supports interlocutory appeal under the present-execution doctrine — also signals that state courts of last resort are prepared to treat Section 230 as a true immunity from suit, consistent with federal consensus but now carrying explicit state appellate endorsement. What remains open is whether this Court will credit the SJC's common-law publisher test over its own prior analysis, a question that will be resolved when it rules on Related Doc. 266.
Redacted Filing — Attachment 275
Issue: Whether §230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act bars state Attorneys General's unfairness and deception claims under state consumer protection laws based on Meta's alleged addictive platform design features and misrepresentations about platform safety directed at minors.
Eighteen state Attorneys General filed an opposition to Meta's motion for summary judgment and a cross-motion for partial summary judgment in the MDL proceeding concerning social media adolescent addiction. The AGs argued that §230 does not bar their unfairness claims because those claims target Meta's own product design choices rather than third-party content, relying on the Ninth Circuit's framework in *Calise v. Meta Platforms* and *Doe v. Internet Brands*. The AGs also cross-moved for partial summary judgment on the commerce-related elements of their state consumer protection claims, contending that Meta's statements constitute deceptive commercial speech unprotected by the First Amendment and that the Noerr-Pennington doctrine does not shield Meta's alleged misrepresentations. On the COPPA claim, the AGs argued Meta had actual knowledge of users under thirteen and that disgorgement is available as a remedy under COPPA's remedial provision.
This filing advances the critical and unsettled question of whether §230 immunizes a platform's affirmative design decisions—such as algorithmic features allegedly engineered to maximize adolescent engagement—when challenged by state enforcement authorities rather than private plaintiffs, potentially establishing that state AG consumer protection actions targeting platform architecture fall outside §230's immunity.