IN RE: SOCIAL MEDIA ADOLESCENT ADDICTION/PERSONAL INJURY PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION
Issue
In *In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation*, the State Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey argue that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act cannot immunize Meta from misrepresentation claims grounded in the company's own affirmative false statements about platform safety — even where those statements reference content-moderation practices or the handling of third-party content. The question is made non-obvious by two recent Ninth Circuit decisions, *Estate of Bride v. YOLO Tech.* and *Doe v. Grindr*, which Meta is expected to read broadly as extending immunity to design-and-moderation representations, and by Meta's procedural choice to raise the immunity argument for the first time through a motion in limine rather than at the dismissal or summary judgment stage.
What Happened
This is an opposition brief filed on June 17, 2026 by four State Attorneys General at the pre-trial stage of MDL No. 3047, responding to Meta's Motion in Limine No. 4, which seeks to exclude evidence of publishing activities or barred features as proof of misrepresentation claims. The AGs make four principal arguments: that MIL No. 4 is a disguised summary judgment motion that cannot properly be raised at this stage under *Kaneka Corp.* and *SPX Corp. v. Bartec USA*; that this Court already held CSER-related misrepresentation claims survive Section 230 immunity at 753 F. Supp. 3d 849, and denied a materially identical motion in the prior *Breathitt* trial; that Section 230's text and the "platform's own conduct" doctrine, as developed in *Doe v. Internet Brands* and *Calise v. Meta*, foreclose immunity where liability rests on the platform's own words rather than on its role as publisher of third-party content; and that *Bride* and *Grindr* are properly read as limited to product-liability claims tied to third-party harmful content, not misrepresentation claims targeting the company's independent deceptive statements. The AGs also represent that CSAM-related statements have been withdrawn from their operative misrepresentation list, asserting this moots a discrete portion of Meta's motion. The brief seeks denial of MIL No. 4 in its entirety.
Why It Matters
This filing maps the most actively contested doctrinal fault line in the social-media MDL: whether Section 230 immunity can reach a platform's own affirmative misrepresentations when those statements concern how the platform manages third-party content, and whether that immunity argument can be revived at the in limine stage after lying dormant through dismissal and summary judgment. The AGs' reading of *Bride* and *Grindr* — confining those decisions to publisher-role claims — is doctrinally significant but contested; if Meta persuades the court that misrepresentations about content moderation are inherently representations about third-party content handling, a substantial category of deception-based claims could be imperiled. The procedural forfeiture theory, if credited, would be a notable development in MDL practice, signaling that Section 230 must be raised and preserved at the dispositive-motion stage or risk being treated as waived. A ruling on this motion — in either direction — is likely to produce Ninth Circuit guidance that will either solidify the misrepresentation carve-out as a clean doctrinal category or begin to erode it where editorial and deceptive conduct are intertwined.
Related Filings
Other proceedings in the same litigation tracked by this monitor.
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