Written by: Haim Ravia, Dotan Hammer
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — the state’s highest court — issued a unanimous decision in Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (SJC-13747), holding that Section 230(c)(1) of the federal Communications Decency Act does not bar the Commonwealth’s lawsuit alleging that Meta designed Instagram to be addictive to children, misled the public about the platform’s safety, failed to effectively prevent underage users from accessing the platform, and created a public nuisance.
The Commonwealth’s Attorney General brought four claims: unfair business practices (designing Instagram to induce compulsive use by children through specific design features); deceptive business practices (deliberately misleading the public about the platform’s safety); failure to implement effective age-gating despite public claims to the contrary; and public nuisance. Meta moved to dismiss, asserting immunity under Section 230(c)(1). The Suffolk Superior Court denied Meta’s motion, and the Supreme Judicial Court accepted the case for direct appellate review.
On the merits, the court conducted its own “plain language” analysis of the term “publisher” in Section 230(c)(1), concluding that Section 230 protects providers from liability only when they are being treated as a publisher of third-party content — not when claims are based on the provider’s own conduct. The court found that the Commonwealth’s claims were based on Meta’s own design choices and misrepresentations, not on holding Meta liable as a publisher of third-party information.
The court rejected Meta’s broad construction of Section 230, under which editorial choices about how to organize and present content — including algorithmic design — would constitute protected “publishing” activity. Instead, the court adopted a narrower view, holding that features designed to maximize engagement and exploit developmental vulnerabilities of children constitute the platform’s own conduct, not the acts of a publisher.
Click here to read the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
