Meta’s Bay State Blues: Mass. High Court Finds Another Crack in the Section 230 Shield

By: Robert Ward

Meta’s Bay State Blues: Mass. High Court Finds Another Crack in the Section 230 Shield

Mere weeks after juries in California and New Mexico returned multi-million-dollar verdicts against Meta Platforms, Inc., the social media company suffered another defeat. On April 10, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) rejected the social media company’s attempt to raise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a shield against the Massachusetts Attorney General’s lawsuit alleging that the company, along with Instagram LLC, designed the Instagram platform to foster compulsive use among children.

Like the plaintiff in the California case, the Attorney General alleges that Meta implemented a “suite of design features that exploit [young] users’ neurological vulnerability to social media addiction,” including “infinite scroll,” autoplay, and ephemeral features like stories and livestreams.[1] Also as in the California case, the Attorney General alleges that Meta executives were aware that these features induced addiction and harmed young users.[2]

Why the Court heard this case now.

First, a brief note about the procedural posture. The case came to the SJC at an unusual stage of the proceedings: immediately after the trial court denied Meta’s motion to dismiss under Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Like federal courts, Massachusetts state courts typically allow appellate review only of a final judgment, not of an interlocutory order. But under the doctrine of present execution—the Massachusetts analog to the federal collateral order doctrine—a party, like Meta, who claims immunity from suit, rather than liability may appeal from an interlocutory order.[3] Because Section 230 provides that “no cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed” under any inconsistent state law, the SJC concluded that Meta could appeal the trial court’s denial of its Section 230 defense.

The SJC adopts a narrow view of Section 230.

While the Section 230 defense warranted interlocutory review, it did not provide the protection Meta sought. Following the Fourth Circuit’s approach to the Section 230 defense, the SJC analyzed three questions: (1) whether Meta is an “interactive computer service” provider, (2) whether the Attorney General’s claims treat Meta as a “publisher of information”, and (3) if so, who provided that information.[4]

The Court had little difficulty with the first and third questions. The second question—and what exactly it means to treat a company as a “publisher”—was more complicated. Canvassing federal court decisions and legislative history, the court identified two competing approaches to Section 230 immunity.

Meta, advocating for a broad approach, asserted that where a claim “implicates traditional publishing activities” such as a provider’s editorial choices, the claim “treats” the provider as the “publisher” of any information, making the provider immune from suit under Section 230.[5] The Attorney General, on the other hand, advocated a narrower “dissemination plus content” approach, which would limit immunity to claims that seek to impose liability based on the “content of the information published.”[6]

After adopting the latter approach, the SJC made quick work of Meta’s challenges to the Attorney General’s claims, concluding that Section 230 does not bar the Attorney General’s claims because they either (1) do not seek to impose liability for any particular content or (2) focus on the company’s own statements, not those of third parties.

What happens next.

As a practical matter, the SJC’s decision means that the case will return to the trial court and proceed to discovery, a phase that will likely be both time‑consuming and contentious. Given the scope of the Attorney General’s allegations—focused on internal research, product design decisions, and executive knowledge—discovery alone could take years, and the case may never reach trial. But the denial of Meta’s bid for early dismissal ensures that the company will face sustained scrutiny of its internal documents and decision‑making processes, raising the financial, operational, and reputational stakes of the litigation regardless of its ultimate resolution.

The ruling also underscores the potential magnitude of Meta’s exposure. Much like the statute at issue in the recent New Mexico case, the Massachusetts statute authorizes civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. While the Massachusetts action is still at an early stage, the $375 million New Mexico verdict, the SJC’s decision, and the potential for substantial per‑violation penalties in Massachusetts raise the specter of substantial liability if the Attorney General were to prevail at trial.

A substantial monetary penalty isn’t all that’s at stake, though. In New Mexico, the court will now hear the state’s public nuisance case and determine whether Meta will need to take action to change the way it operates its platforms. This next phase will be closely watched in Massachusetts, where the Attorney General also seeks forward‑looking relief. If the New Mexico court rules in favor of the state, that decision could offer a roadmap for states pursuing similar theories, like Massachusetts. It may also embolden state governments to put further pressure on Meta and other tech companies to change the way they operate. If such public nuisance theories succeed, the complex patchwork of state-specific requirements that is likely to result may ultimately give rise to increased interest in more uniform, federal regulation. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this and other cases like it, the industry—from established players who have thrived behind Section 230’s shield to startup platforms whose feasibility depends on it—will be watching closely.

[1] Commonwealth v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. SJC-13747, slip op. at 6–8 (Mass. Apr. 10, 2026).

[2] Id. at 9.

[3] See id. at 16–17.

[4] Id. at 22–23.

[5] Id. at 24–25.

[6] Id. at 27 (citing Henderson v. Source for Pub. Data, LP, 53 F.4th 110, 121–22 (4th Cir. 2022).