• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 25, 2025

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by cyberbullying victims who wanted to revive a claim that Yolo, a former Snapchat extension that allowed people to message each other anonymously, was dangerously designed.

As is customary, the court didn't give a reason for its refusal to hear the case.

The move came in a dispute dating to 2021, when family members of cyberbullying victims including Carson Bride, who committed suicide at age 16 after being harassed online, brought a class-action complaint against Yolo.

The family members brought several claims, including that the app promoted cyberbullying by enabling anonymous messaging. The plaintiffs also claimed Yolo misrepresented that it would unmask users who were abusive.

A trial judge threw out the lawsuit, ruling that Yolo was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes companies from liability over content posted by users.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals partially revived the case, ruling that Section 230 didn't apply to claims that Yolo falsely advertised that it would reveal identities of people who violated the terms of service by posting abusive content.

But the circuit court upheld the dismissal of claims centered on Yolo's design, ruling that those claims were foreclosed by Section 230 because they sought to hold Yolo responsible for harassing speech.

The plaintiffs then asked the Supreme Court to resurrect those design-related claims, arguing that Section 230 shouldn't protect companies that design products “with defective safety features that failed to protect children against obvious harms.”

The Supreme Court's refusal to take up the dispute comes as courts throughout the country faced with lawsuits alleging that social media companies are harming young users.

To date, trial judges have reached different conclusions about those claims.

For instance, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Neil Kravitz recentlyrefused to dismiss Attorney General Brian Schwalb's allegations that Facebook and Instagram designed their platforms in ways that addict young users.

But U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California, who is presiding over a class-action against multiple social media platforms, ruled in 2023 that Section 230 protected Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat from some claims, but not all.

For example, she said Section 230 barred claims over the platforms' use of recommendation algorithms to addict teens, but not from claims that the platforms failed to label filtered photos or warn users about the risks of addiction.