Supreme Court lets Vermont Instagram addiction lawsuit against Meta proceed

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Meta Platforms’ appeal kept alive a Vermont lawsuit that accuses Instagram of being engineered to hold young users’ attention and boost advertising revenue. The denial leaves the case in state court, where Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark has said Meta built features to exploit teenagers’ vulnerabilities and encourage compulsive use.

Clark filed the case in October 2023 in Chittenden Superior Court, alleging violations of the Vermont Consumer Protection Act. The Vermont Supreme Court later held that Meta had enough contacts with Vermont for specific personal jurisdiction, a ruling that allowed the lawsuit to move forward and set up the jurisdiction fight Meta brought to Washington.

The company asked the Supreme Court to step in after filing its certiorari petition on January 26, 2026. SCOTUSblog records show the petition was distributed for the justices’ May 21 conference after a response was requested on February 18, and the court declined review on May 26. NetChoice, the tech-industry trade group, backed Meta in an amicus brief filed in March 2026, arguing the Vermont ruling could expand state court authority over internet companies beyond conduct tightly tied to one state.

The practical effect is broader than one lawsuit. Vermont’s case is part of a wider wave of claims from states, school districts and individual plaintiffs who argue that social-media platforms were designed to maximize time spent online and that those choices can harm minors’ mental health. Meta has denied that Instagram is intentionally addictive in the way regulators and plaintiffs describe, and it has warned that if Vermont can proceed on this theory, similar suits could spread across all 50 states.

The legal exposure now reaches beyond Vermont. Reuters reported that Mark Zuckerberg testified in February 2026 in a California trial over youth-social-media addiction, and AP reported that Meta recently settled a Kentucky school-district lawsuit over alleged youth mental-health harms, the first of many similar district cases to settle. The background to all of it is the U.S. Surgeon General’s May 23, 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health, which called for coordinated action from families, companies, researchers and policymakers. With the Supreme Court stepping aside, the fight over teen safety and platform design remains in the hands of lower courts, where discovery could force closer scrutiny of how Meta built Instagram and why.