Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sits during the bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insights Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the U.S. Capitol on September 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Landmark lawsuit against social media giants Meta, of the alphabet YouTube and TikTok are set to begin Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
This is the first of several high-profile lawsuits starting in 2026, centering on allegations that the companies misled the public about the safety of their apps, even though they knew certain design choices caused various harms to young users.
Social media companies have long used Section 230, the part of the Communications Decency Act that protects speech on the internet, to shield them from liability for content posted on their platforms. As a result, in these cases, plaintiffs have focused on alleged app design flaws and related public misrepresentations about the safety of the services as a way to shift the discussion away from Section 230-related protections.
These lawsuits have been compared to those brought against “Big Tobacco” in the 1990s, and experts say they could have a long-lasting impact on regulation and public perception of these companies.
In January 2024, during a Senate hearing focused on Meta’s efforts to protect children on its platform, lawmakers criticized several social media executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The lawsuit, which begins Tuesday, focuses on a young woman who claims she became addicted to social media when she was a minor due to certain features and characteristics of apps like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
snap was also part of the civil suit, but the company behind the app Snapchat reached a settlement with the plaintiffs last week, before the trial began.
A separate trial begins next week in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the state’s attorney general alleges that Meta’s Facebook and Instagram services failed to protect the apps from online predators who sexually exploited the various children who used them.
The New Mexico lawsuit is separate from others filed by various state attorneys general across the country alleging design flaws in the Meta app harmed children’s mental health. The company said it expects such litigation to begin as early as the second half of 2026.
Another trial involving Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Snap is scheduled to begin later this year in the Northern District of California. The federal lawsuit also includes allegations that the companies created flawed apps that encouraged unhealthy and addictive behaviors in teens and children.
Separately, New York City filed suit in October against Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok, accusing them of creating addictive platforms that contribute to children’s mental health problems.
In this week’s lawsuit, lawyers for the three companies are expected to argue that third-party content posted on the platforms, not the product design, should be held liable.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai attends a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA on September 4, 2025.
brian snyder reuter
The lawsuit, first filed in 2022 by the plaintiff listed as “KGM” and his mother, is the first of its kind to go to trial and is seen as a bellwether for several others being filed around the country.
The lawsuit alleges that the tech companies intentionally engineered features like autoplay and infinite scrolling to make their platforms addictive and cause mental health problems.
Google said in a press conference last week that it expects the trial to last six to eight weeks. Jury selection could take up to a week, with opening statements beginning in early February.
Several celebrities are expected to attend the trial.
In October, Judge Carolyn Kuhl ruled that Zuckerberg and Instagram chief executive Adam Mosseri would have to testify. Google has said either CEO Sundar Pichai or YouTube CEO Neil Mohan could be summoned, but neither has yet been ordered to do so.
Google said in a media briefing that it, like its co-defendants, is not a social media platform. The company said it is primarily a streaming platform and is working with experts to build experiences that are age-appropriate.
“Providing safer and healthier experiences for young people has always been at the core of our work,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”
A Meta spokesperson pointed to a recent blog outlining the lawsuit’s claims and said the recent lawsuit misrepresents Meta’s commitment to providing safe and valuable experiences for young people.
“Providing teenagers with access to the benefits of social media while protecting them is one of the most important challenges our industry must address,” Metablog said.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
The potential damages and consequences could be significant for all companies involved. Three social leaders have been named as co-defendants, but if they are found responsible, the judge could hand down separate sentences and impose different penalties for each.
Mehta warned in an October filing that financial damages from certain incidents could run into the tens of billions of dollars if found liable.
Google has said it expects any debt to be mostly monetary and injunctive relief to be limited. That means a judge could decide that platforms need to make algorithmic changes to product features.
— CNBC’s Julia Boorstin contributed to this report
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