Judge wants California social media addiction cases to move forward despite appeal

Meta, Google and TikTok said it may be irrelevant to start discovery in the cases without the Ninth Circuit's guidance.SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge hesitated to stop court proceedings Thursday in a group of cases between California’s attorney general and social media companies over a California Senate bill regulating online content for minors.During a hearing on a motion to stay pending appeal brought by plaintiffs Google, Meta and TikTok, the social media giants argued that because the judge’s denial of a preliminary injunction to block Senate Bill 976, also called the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, from enforcement is likely to be scheduled for oral argument in the Ninth Circuit next March, it’s difficult to start discovery for the cases without the appellate panel’s input.“From the plaintiffs’ perspective, there is enough uncertainty until there is guidance from the Ninth Circuit,” Meta attorney Isaac Chaput said. “We don’t know what is going to be relevant.”Chaput, who argued for all the social media platforms at Thursday’s hearing, said it would be a waste of judicial resources to start discovery for the related cases when it was unclear how the Ninth Circuit would tailor its opinion, on whether or not to affirm Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Davila’s denial of the injunction.“There is going to be some impact from the ruling from the Ninth Circuit,” he said. “The legal framework could change dramatically.”Davila, a Barack Obama appointee, said he would like to see limited discovery move forward and not have months pass between the Ninth Circuit’s hearing argument and publishing its opinion while the “cases fall by the wayside.”Samuel Sokolsky, representing Rob Bonta and the California Attorney General’s Office, agreed with Davila that discovery should start, but said it was unclear what was needed to begin collecting documents and depositions. He said it may be possible to obtain information from the multi-district litigation currently underway in Oakland federal court that also questions the algorithmic addictive qualities of social media on students.Sokolsky argued it was worth looking into topics that include harms to children and “what the companies knew of that,” saying the platforms conducted internal research on the subject.Davila made it clear the defense needed to be specific about what it wanted to ask for, as the social media companies continued to push back.Chaput argued the attorney general’s office asked for overly broad, potentially irrelevant information, saying the documents from the multidistrict litigation date back to 2009 and will “be stale at this point.”In June, the social media companies argued for a preliminary injunction to block the bill, claiming restricting recommended content — both the human decisions on what to put on their social media feeds and the algorithms that determine what users see when they scroll — regulates protected expression and imposes unconstitutional burdens on First Amendment-protected actions.Bonta’s representatives said the algorithm is just number crunching based on millions of data points, and humans don’t decide what gets recommended in personalized feeds.Davila denied the injunction in August. He subsequently denied an injunction pending appeal, and the companies moved to halt the cases.Rather than take the motion to stay under submission, Davila scheduled more hearings for both parties to hash out what discovery may be possible without the Ninth Circuit’s guidance.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads