School districts, individuals and families, and state governments have filed lawsuits against major social media companies, including TikTok, Google, Meta and Snap, in federal and state courts. The plaintiffs argue that the companies' social media platforms harm children's mental health through addictive algorithms and harmful content.

Individuals and families began filing lawsuits in 2022, alleging that social media platforms' addictive design contributed to mental health problems among children and teenagers. These claims have been brought in both federal and state courts.

School districts also began filing lawsuits against social media companies in early 2023, starting with Seattle Public Schools in January, followed by school districts and education authorities in California, Maryland, Colorado and other states.

In May 2023, the US Surgeon General issued an advisory warning positing that social media poses “a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children” and that there is insufficient evidence “to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.”

State attorneys general have also brought actions against social media companies in state courts, including Arkansas against Meta and TikTok in March 2023 and Utah against TikTok in October 2023. These cases remain ongoing.

In late October 2023, 41 states and the District of Columbia sued Meta. Thirty-three states jointly filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California (with four later withdrawing from the case); seven states (Tennessee, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont) and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits in their local courts; and Florida filed a separate lawsuit in federal court. They allege that Meta intentionally designed its social media platforms to encourage addictive use and harm children’s mental health.

Federal cases filed across the country have been centralised in the US District Court for the Northern District of California as a multidistrict litigation for coordinated pretrial proceedings. Cases that are not resolved during these proceedings may later be returned to the federal courts in which they were originally filed. Separately, thousands of cases brought by individuals, families and school districts before California state courts are being coordinated before a Los Angeles court. More information on those proceedings is available here.

In November 2023, the federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation rejected social media companies’ requests to dismiss the individual claims.

The federal multidistrict litigation includes three main types of claims: those brought by individuals and families, those brought by state attorneys general against Meta, and those brought by school districts. Separate test trials have been planned for each category.

In June 2025, the judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation selected six school-district cases as bellwethers, or test cases, intended to help assess how juries may respond to the claims and inform potential settlements.

The first of these cases, brought by a Kentucky school district, was scheduled to go to trial in June 2026. However, in May 2026, Snap, YouTube, and TikTok and then Meta settled the case for a total of USD27m. The next school-district test case, brought by Tucson Unified School District, is scheduled for early 2027.

The case brought by Tennessee attorney general against Meta in Tennessee state court, as part of the coordinated multistate effort by several attorneys general, began on 20 July 2026.

In August 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed social media companies' appeal for coming too early in the proceedings, allowing over 3 000 lawsuits to go ahead. The companies argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability not only for user-generated content, but also from claims alleging they failed to warn users about the potentially addictive nature of their services. According to the court, Section 230 does not provide immunity from lawsuits and deemed the appeal premature.

The first federal trial of the state attorneys general’s claims against Meta is scheduled to begin on 18 August 2026. It will consider California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey’s claims under their respective consumer protection laws, as well as claims brought by 29 states under the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

There is also an ongoing case against Meta in New Mexico state court over allegations that it failed to protect children from sexual exploitation.