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Judge rejects Meta's bid to dismiss the claims

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States seek injunction and monetary damages

By Brendan Pierson

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Facebook parent company Meta

must face lawsuits by U.S. states accusing it of encouraging

social media addiction among teens, a federal judge in

California ruled on Tuesday.

Oakland-based U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers

rejected Meta's bid to toss the claims made by the states in two

separate lawsuits filed last year, one including more than 30

states and the other including only Florida.

The company had argued that federal law blocked some of the

claims and that the states failed to point to misleading

statements that it had made.

The judge put some limits on the claims that the states -

numbering more than 30 in all - could pursue, but allowed the

case to go forward largely intact. The judge also rejected the

social media company's motion to dismiss some claims over social

media addiction brought by individual plaintiffs.

The states are asking the court for injunctions against

Meta's allegedly illegal business practices and are seeking

unspecified monetary damages.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by various plaintiffs

against Meta, ByteDance's TikTok and Alphabet's

YouTube, accusing the companies of designing addictive

algorithms that led to anxiety, depression and body-image issues

among adolescents, and failing to warn of their risks.