Background
The 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, and inadequately protect users from harmful content or intentionally amplify it. The district court organized the litigation into separate tracks for personal-injury plaintiffs, state attorneys general, other individual plaintiffs, school districts and local governments, and claims against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta moved to dismiss claims brought by state attorneys general, school districts, and local governments, arguing in part that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred substantial portions of them. The district court generally denied the motions, although it ruled that Section 230 limited claims implicating Meta’s role as the publisher of third-party content. Meta and the TikTok entities appealed without obtaining certification for an interlocutory appeal, contending that the rulings were immediately appealable collateral orders. Several plaintiff groups filed protective, conditional 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 a denial of that defense can be reviewed effectively after final judgment, it does not satisfy the collateral order doctrine’s requirement that the challenged ruling be effectively unreviewable later.
The court also concluded that the district court’s rulings failed the doctrine’s other two requirements. They did not conclusively resolve the Section 230 questions because the district court allowed certain novel 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 defendant as the publisher or speaker of third-party content requires examining the allegations, asserted duties, content, and context of each claim. The court also denied Meta’s motion to stay trial as moot.
Key Takeaways
- Section 230 provides a defense against liability rather than a right to avoid litigation altogether.
- An order denying a Section 230 defense ordinarily cannot be appealed immediately under the collateral order doctrine.
- Section 230 determinations are intertwined with the merits because courts must assess each claim’s theory of liability and its relationship to third-party content.
Why It Matters
The decision prevents online platforms from treating every adverse pretrial Section 230 ruling as immediately appealable. Unless another basis for interlocutory review exists, defendants generally must continue litigating and raise their Section 230 arguments after final judgment.
For plaintiffs in social-media litigation, the ruling reduces the likelihood that Section 230 disputes will halt district-court proceedings through immediate appeals. It does not decide whether the underlying claims against Meta or TikTok ultimately survive Section 230; it decides only when appellate review is available.