Is Social Media a Public Nuisance? Litigation Continues

James Morsch

 

Discussion about the effects of social media and its appropriate use provide a pervasive source of attention and controversy in contemporaneous American society. Whether it’s social media’s purported influence on elections,[1] mental health,[2] free speech,[3] or other issues, social media companies and their executives are constantly defending their companies from increased public and legal scrutiny.[4] As a result, social media companies are no strangers to litigation. However, ongoing multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California may upset the status quo of litigation victories for social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat.[5] The consolidated claims of several state attorneys general advanced new Section 230, negligence, and public nuisance theories of liability that largely survived defendants’ motion to dismiss.[6] Resultingly, plaintiffs’ claims targeting the addictive qualities of the social media companies’ products and the alleged harm they cause America’s youth and state school systems[7] cleared a significant procedural hurdle.

Courts have routinely shielded social media companies from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.[8] In its current state, Section 230 broadly protects social media companies from liability for content posted by third-party users on their sites.[9] Despite recent debate, Congress has not amended Section 230 since 2017.[10] While plaintiffs’ previous attempts to pierce Section 230’s armor proved difficult, recent MDL claims against social media companies sounding in negligence and public nuisance largely bypassed Section 230’s formidable obstacle at the motion to dismiss phase of litigation.[11] A first year law student could likely craft a number of plausible negligence claims against a social media company, but a public nuisance claim? This seems more difficult to conceptualize, and the remainder of this blog explores how the plaintiffs’ public nuisance claim survived the motion to dismiss phase of the MDL.     

In a November 15, 2024 order, the Northern District of California granted in part defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ public nuisance claims, but only the public nuisance claims arising under Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and South Carolina state law.[12] The plaintiffs’ claims survived analysis under state law in fifteen other states.[13]

In the public nuisance theory, plaintiffs alleged that school districts diverted resources to respond to “their students compulsive use and accompanying mental health issues” caused by the addictive design features of the social media companies’ products.[14]   

Defendants moved to dismiss the public nuisance claims on three primary grounds: (1) the claims lacked a land-related or product-related nexus that public nuisance law requires, (2) the defendants’ conduct does not interfere with a public right, and (3) the plaintiffs could not and did not suffer a cognizable “special injury” under public nuisance law.[15] In other words, the defendants essentially argued first that the lack of a land-related or a product-related nexus constituted a per se bar against the plaintiffs while the remaining two grounds for dismissal challenged the merits of the public nuisance claim.   

Beginning with what the defendants argued was a mandatory nexus between public nuisance law and land use, the District Court noted that while public nuisance claims have been historically linked to land use creating a nuisance, the link is not mandatory for a finding of liability under public nuisance law.[16] The District Court instead embraced the reasoning in In re JUUL Labs, Inc., Marketing., Sales Practices, and Product Liability Litigation., 497 F. Supp 3d 552, 647 (N.D. Cal. 2020) in which the court allowed the plaintiffs’ public nuisance claims against electronic vape manufacturer, Juul, to proceed in the absence of state case law to the contrary.[17] Here, the District Court proceeded with that logic, and only identified three states (Illinois, Rhode Island, and South Carolina) with relevant case law specifically restricting public nuisance law to require a land-use nexus.[18]   

Continuing their nexus argument, the defendants contended that plaintiffs’ claims sounding in public nuisance were inappropriate because product liability law should govern the claim instead.[19] The District Court again looked to the case law of the plaintiffs’ states, and determined that only Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island court decisions authorized dismissal because their high courts “express[ed] reluctance to expand public nuisance” liability to products.[20] For the remaining sixteen states, the District Court examined both non-binding authority[21] and persuasive authority[22] to conclude that the remaining state courts have not adopted a per se product liability exclusion rule.[23] For these remaining states’ claims, precedent required the District Court to “make a reasonable determination” on plaintiffs’ allegations that the social media companies’ algorithms “establish[ed] an unreasonable interference with a public right.”[24] The District Court conducted its reasonability analysis using five consolidated considerations derived from its case law analysis,[25] and the District Court concluded that state courts (except courts in Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) could consider the defendants’ product unreasonably interfered with public rights.[26]

Proceeding to the merits of the plaintiffs’ claim, the District Court first considered defendants’ contention that the defendants’ social media products (1) do not plausibly interfere with public rights to health, safety, and education, and (2) assuming they do interfere, the interference does not affect the entire community.[27] The District Court analogized the social media companies’ addictive platforms to the electronic vaping devices in JUUL and opioid drugs in In re Opioid Litigation,[28] stating the defendants’ “alleged nuisance-causing conduct does not solely target individual children and schools, but is directed to the public, writ large[,]”[29] and the harms resulting from the conduct “all flow from defendants’ alleged interference with the public health.”[30] Perhaps without surprise, the District Court placed this issue in the same bucket as JUUL and In re Opioid Litigation by approving the plaintiffs’ theory at this stage of litigation that the social media companies’ conduct in promulgating the use of their products allegedly caused the complained public health and safety harms.

The final conclusion of the District Court evaluated the “special injury” requirement in public nuisance cases and determined “[t]he proper inquiry … is to compare the risks defendants’ conduct imposes on school districts with the risks imposed on the public at large.”[31] In answering this inquiry, the District Court considered the injuries to the school systems to be unique because the school systems themselves were obviously not medically harmed by the product.[32]Instead, the product allegedly caused the schools to divert resources to respond to students’ health, and thus the schools’ injuries are uniquely borne on them as a result of the harm to the health rights of the public.[33]        

Only time will tell if the plaintiff school districts can sustain their public nuisance claims against the defendant social media companies’ products. But for now, they are off to a good start.  

 

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[1] See Thomas Fujiwara, Karsten Müller, & Carlo Schwarz, The Effect of Social Media on Elections: Evidence from the United States, National Bureau of Economic Research 31 (May 2021), https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28849/w28849.pdf.  

[2] See The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, Social Media and Youth Mental Health (2023).

[3] See Peter J. Benson, Valerie C. Brannon, & Victoria L Killion, Cong. Rsch. Serv., IF12904, Social Media: Regulatory, Legal, and Policy Considerations for the 119^th Congress 1 (2025).

[4] See Ronald V. Miller, Jr., Social Media Addiction Lawsuit, Miller & Zois, LLC (Mar. 6, 2025), https://www.lawsuit-information-center.com/social-media-addiction-lawsuits.html. Miller reports there are “1,464 total pending cases” against social media companies in the MDL. Id.   

[5] See In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Inj. Prods. Liab. Litig., 702 F. Supp. 3d 809 (N.D. Cal. 2023).

[6] See id. at 818, 862–63 (responding to defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ products liability claims and whether Section 230 of the First Amendment bar plaintiffs’ negligence per se claims). California v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Inj. Prods. Liab. Litig.), No. 4:23-cv-05885-YGR, 2024 WL 4532937, at *61–62 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 15, 2024) (addressing defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ “deceptive acts and practices” and “unfair and/or unconscionable acts and practices” claims); In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, 2024 WL 4673710, at *28 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2024) (responding to defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ negligence claims); In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, at 27–28 (N.D. Cal. 2024) (largely denying defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ public nuisance claims).      

[7] See In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, at 27–28 (N.D. Cal. 2024)(allowing state public nuisance claims to survive defendants’ motion to dismiss for fifteen of the nineteen total states bringing the claims).      

[8] See Peter J. Benson, Valerie C. Brannon, & Victoria L Killion, Cong. Rsch. Serv., IF12904, Social Media: Regulatory, Legal, and Policy Considerations for the 119^th Congress 1 (2025).

[9] Emily Birnbaum & Greg Stohr, What is Section 203? Supreme Court Set to Reconsider Online Speech, Bloomberg Editorial (Feb. 22, 2023), https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/blaw/bloombergterminalnews/bloomberg-terminal-news/RQI0RAT0G1KX.  One noted exception is that “Section 230 doesn’t block criminal prosecution over child pornography shared on social media[.]” Id.  

[10] Peter J. Benson & Valerie C. Brannon, Cong. Rsch. Serv., IF12584, Section 230: A Brief Overview 2 (2024).

[11] See In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, 2024 WL 4673710, at *28 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2024) (“declin[ing] to hold Section 230 bars liability predicated on a failure to warn of known risks of addiction attendant to any platform features or as to platform construction in general); In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, at 27–28 (N.D. Cal. 2024) (Section 230 did not bar any claim under plaintiffs’ public nuisance theory).      

[12] In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, at 27–28 (N.D. Cal. 2024).      

[13] Id. The states where the public nuisance claims survived the motion to dismiss are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia. Id. at 28.

[14] In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, 2024 WL 4673710, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2024).

[15] In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-3047-YGR, at 3 (N.D. Cal. 2024).      

[16] Id.

[17] Id. at 8.

[18] Id. at 9.

[19] Id. (noting that the defendants also “hotly contest[] use of products liability law in this MDL”).

[20] Id. at 10.

[21] See id. at 11–13.

[22] See id. at 13–16.

[23] Id. at 21.

[24] Id. at 16–17.

[25] See id. at 17–18. The District Court considered the following: “(i) whether products liability law provides a more appropriate vehicle for addressing the alleged nuisance-creating conduct, (ii) the manufacturer’s control over the product and ability to abate the nuisance, (iii) whether the product is lawfully distributed and, if so, whether the harm results from the product’s unlawful use, (iv) the existence of governmental regulation addressing the manufacturer’s conduct, and (v) the prospect of limitless liability.” Id.

[26] Id. at 21.

[27] Id. The District Court elected not to rule on “education” since plaintiffs’ “successfully established unreasonable interference with the public’s right to health and safety[.]” Id. at 23.

[28] In re Opioid Litigation, 2018 WL 3115102 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 18, 2018)

[29] Id. at 22–23.

[30] Id. at 23.

[31] Id. at 26.

[32] Id. at 26–27.

[33] Id.