According to Fortune, the highest court in Massachusetts heard oral arguments on Friday in a 2024 lawsuit filed by Attorney General Andrea Campbell. The state alleges that Meta knowingly designed features on Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users, impacting hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Massachusetts. State Solicitor David Kravitz argued the claim is based on Meta’s own internal research, which he says shows the tools encourage addiction. Meta’s attorney, Mark Mosier, countered that the suit infringes on First Amendment protections for publishing. The case references internal studies, including one where 13.5% of teen girls said Instagram worsened suicidal thoughts and 17% said it worsened eating disorders. This state lawsuit is separate from a joint federal case filed by 33 states in 2023.
The legal battle is about design, not speech
Here’s the core tension. Meta is arguing this is a First Amendment issue—that designing a feed or sending notifications is basically a “publishing function,” and that’s protected speech. The state, and seemingly the judges, are slicing that argument apart. Justice Dalila Wendlandt pointed out the claim isn’t about false info in notifications, but about an “algorithm of incessant notifications” designed to exploit teenage FOMO. Justice Scott Kafker went further, saying it’s “not how to publish but how to attract you to the information.” He said the system is indifferent to content, whether it’s “Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ or nonsense.” That’s a huge distinction. They’re trying to argue that the addictive architecture of the app—endless scroll, dopamine-driven alerts—is a product design flaw, not a speech act. If that argument holds, it bypasses a giant legal shield Meta has relied on for years.
Meta’s own research is the problem
And that’s the real kicker. The state’s case leans heavily on Meta’s internal studies, the ones famously revealed by the Wall Street Journal back in 2021. Meta can’t really dispute the data exists. So their defense has to be a legal technicality about what that data means and whether they can be held liable for acting on it. But in the court of public opinion, it’s devastating. When your own research shows your product is making 17% of teen girls’ eating disorders worse, how do you square that with a “longstanding commitment to supporting young people”? It looks terrible. Critics, like whistleblower Arturo Bejar, argue Meta chooses “splashy headlines” over “real steps.” So even if Meta wins this legal round on a First Amendment technicality, they’ve already lost the narrative. The evidence is out there.
This is just one front in a massive war
Don’t forget, this Massachusetts case is a single skirmish. Meta is facing that massive, 33-state federal lawsuit about collecting data on kids under 13. They’re dealing with legislative pressure globally. Basically, the entire legal and regulatory environment is shifting beneath their feet. For years, social media companies operated in a wild west where growth and engagement were the only metrics that mattered. Now, the bill is coming due. The question is whether courts will see these design choices as clever product management or as a form of consumer harm, like selling a dangerously defective toy. If even one major state like Massachusetts succeeds, it opens the floodgates. Other states will copy the playbook, and the legal costs and required design overhauls could be enormous.
What happens next?
The court will rule later, but the arguments show where this is headed. The judges’ skeptical questions about notifications and algorithms suggest they might allow the case to proceed to discovery. And that’s where things get really risky for Meta. Discovery means internal emails, strategy documents, and more research could become public. That’s a nightmare scenario. Even if Meta ultimately wins, the discovery process alone could generate years of terrible headlines. So the real goal for Meta here might just be to kill the case early on First Amendment grounds and avoid that exposure. But the judges’ focus on the addictive design as separate from content is a bad sign for that strategy. This feels like a turning point. The era of “move fast and break things” is crashing into the hard reality of product liability law, and the kids are the broken things.
