Background
The underlying multidistrict litigation comprises thousands of lawsuits alleging that Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms encourage addictive behavior, fail to verify users’ ages, help adolescents evade parental controls, inadequately protect users from harmful content, and intentionally amplify harmful or exploitative content. The district court organized the litigation into separate tracks for personal-injury plaintiffs, state attorneys general, school districts and local governments, and other claimants.
Meta moved to dismiss several groups of claims, arguing in part that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred them. The district court held that Section 230 foreclosed some claims to the extent they targeted Meta’s role as publisher of third-party content, but allowed other claims to proceed. Meta and the TikTok entities appealed those interlocutory rulings as of right under the collateral order doctrine. The plaintiffs filed protective cross-appeals while disputing appellate jurisdiction.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeals and conditional cross-appeals for lack of appellate jurisdiction. It held that Section 230 supplies a defense to liability, not immunity from suit. Because an erroneous denial of that defense can be reviewed effectively after final judgment, the district court’s rulings did not satisfy the third requirement of the collateral order doctrine.
The orders also failed the doctrine’s other two requirements. They did not conclusively resolve the Section 230 questions because the district court allowed certain claims to proceed “for now” and indicated that it might revisit the issue as the litigation developed. Nor was the Section 230 inquiry completely separate from the merits, because deciding whether a claim treats a platform as the publisher or speaker of third-party content requires examination of the claim’s factual allegations, theory of liability, and asserted legal duty.
Key Takeaways
- Section 230 provides online-service providers with a defense against liability for claims that improperly treat them as publishers or speakers of third-party content; it does not confer immunity from being sued.
- An order denying a Section 230 defense is not immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine and ordinarily must await final judgment.
- Prior Ninth Circuit opinions describing Section 230 as “immunity from suit” did not control because they had not decided the collateral-order jurisdictional question.
Why It Matters
The decision prevents social-media companies from taking immediate appeals as of right whenever a district court declines to dismiss claims under Section 230. Unless another route to interlocutory review is available, defendants must continue litigating and raise the Section 230 issue after final judgment.
The opinion does not decide whether the plaintiffs’ claims ultimately survive Section 230. It resolves only appellate jurisdiction, leaving the district court to continue evaluating the claims and the defense as the multidistrict litigation proceeds.