US court allows consideration of thousands of lawsuits against Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat over social media addiction

A U.S. appellate court allowed the review of more than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat to proceed.

This was reported by Reuters.

Plaintiffs claim the companies designed their platforms to be addictive for children and teenagers.

What is known about the lawsuits against social media companies

The suits were filed by states, municipalities, school districts and individuals.

They accuse the companies of deliberately engaging young users in prolonged social media use. According to the plaintiffs, this is linked to rising rates of depression, anxiety and body image problems among young people.

Meta and TikTok attempted to challenge the court ruling that allowed these lawsuits to proceed.

The companies cited a statute that generally shields online services from liability for content posted by their users. Meta and TikTok argued that this protection also covers claims that the platforms failed to warn users about the risks of addiction.

The appeals court did not rule on that argument on the merits. Judges said the companies had appealed prematurely. In their decision, the statute provides the companies with protection from liability, but does not exempt them from the judicial process itself.

Denial of Meta’s motion and other legal cases

The court also denied Meta’s request to delay the trial in the lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general over the unlawful collection of children’s data and misleading statements about platform safety.

In addition to the federal lawsuits, the companies face roughly 3,300 similar cases in courts, including:

• in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent and awarded $6 million to a girl who said she was addicted to Instagram and YouTube;
• in New Mexico, a court ordered Meta to pay $567 million to a teen mental health fund (after jurors in March awarded $375 million in a child exploitation case).

The companies deny the allegations.

Recall that in early July 2026 the Danish government joined legal proceedings at the Court of Justice of the European Union that could affect the rights of European publishers. The country backed Belgium’s position in a case against tech companies including Google, Meta, Spotify, Sony and Streamz.

Read also: US court allowed Perplexity to use AI agents for purchases on Amazon