9th Circuit Tosses Meta & TikTok’s Interlocutory Appeal, Clearing Path for 3,000+ Youth-Addiction Suits

U.S. courts have cracked open the nearly three-decade-old armor that Congress forged for Silicon Valley in 1996, echoing how 1990s state lawsuits pierced Big Tobacco’s long-standing legal defenses and culminated in the 1998 $206 billion Master Settlement. Like automobiles before seat-belt mandates (Nader’s 1965 critique led to the 1966 Highway Safety Act), social platforms may now be treated as designed products with foreseeable hazards rather than neutral conduits of speech. The decision reflects a broader global retreat from the “code is law” ethos—mirroring the EU’s 2024 Digital Services Act, Australia’s 2025 Online Safety overhaul, and rising youth-mental-health data from the CDC—that reframes algorithmic engagement as a public-health issue. Whether the lawsuits end in a blockbuster settlement or Supreme Court reversal, this moment signals that, a century from now, Section 230’s absolute immunity era might be viewed as a brief deregulatory interlude between the broadcast and algorithmic ages.