A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, ByteDance’s TikTok, and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies’ bid to reverse a lower court’s ruling forcing them to face more than 3,000 lawsuits over the claims filed in federal court, concluding that the appeal came too early in the litigation. But the 9th Circuit said Section 230 provides a defense to liability, not immunity from lawsuits, so the appeal was premature. The companies are facing hundreds of additional lawsuits over similar claims in state court, with approximately 3,300 of them in a consolidated proceeding in California state court. And, Meta lost both phases of a landmark lawsuit brought by New Mexico in state court.