Lawsuit Updates & History
Stay up to date on the latest information on the current social media addiction lawsuits being filed.
THIS IS AN ACTIVE LAWSUIT
Written and edited by our team of expert legal content writers and reviewed and approved by Attorney Matthew Bergman
- Content last updated on:
- May 30, 2024
Written and edited by our team of expert legal content writers and reviewed and approved by
Attorney Matthew Bergman
- Content last updated on:
- May 30, 2024
May 1, 2024: There were 16 new social media addiction cases added to the MDL in April, with a total of 455 social media addiction lawsuits filed.
April 18, 2024: Judge Kuhl, leading the California coordinated proceedings, has instructed the parties to gather and talk about different types of randomly picked cases, making a sample group for personal injury cases. They plan to choose these cases on June 17th this year and finish collecting evidence for them by December.
January 2, 2024: There are 482 actions filed against social media companies, with 393 cases pending.
December 15, 2023: Fourteen new youth social media addiction lawsuit cases have been transferred to the MDL since November, with 436 cases pending.
November 16, 2023: To date, 455 actions against social media companies have been transferred to the MDL, and 448 are still pending.
November 14, 2023: Judge Rogers denies the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss the lawsuits in the MDL, ruling that Section 230 does not give social media companies blanket immunity.
October 24, 2023: A coalition of 33 state attorneys general file a joint social media addiction lawsuit against Meta. Nine others have filed separate actions.
October 16, 2023: A total of 434 cases against social media companies have been filed and transferred to the MDL, and 429 cases are pending.
July 24, 2023: To date, nearly 200 school districts have joined the tide of claims against social media companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
July 17, 2023: The number of cases transferred to the MDL has risen to 348, and 344 remain pending.
May 15, 2023: One hundred more cases have been transferred to the MDL since March, bringing the total to 235.
April 14, 2023: Defendants in the social media MDL file a joint motion to dismiss, asserting that product liability laws don’t apply to social media platforms because they are intangible products.
February 16, 2023: The number of cases transferred to MDL 3047 rise to 135.
November 15, 2022: One hundred twenty social media cases are pending in the MDL.
October 14, 2022: The number of cases transferred to MDL 3047 has grown to 39.
October 6, 2022: The Panel on Multidistrict Litigation grants plaintiffs’ motion to transfer social media lawsuits to multidistrict litigation. The cases are assigned to the Honorable Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California as MDL 3047. The court received notice that 56 new cases had been filed in 24 districts.
August 2, 2022: A plaintiff in a lawsuit against Meta files a motion to transfer 28 pending social media lawsuits to multidistrict litigation with hundreds more expected.
Background on the Lawsuits
In October of 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen courageously blew the whistle after secretly copying thousands of pages of internal Meta documents. These documents revealed that Facebook executives knew its product harmed children but chose not to fix it.
Thousands of parents have struggled to stop mental health decline in their children to no avail because they didn’t know what was wrong. Many have endured the pain of their children’s suicide with no answers. Children are growing up with lifelong physical damage from eating disorders and addictions. Frances Haugen’s testimony brought to light social media’s role in these devastating circumstances.
Meta learned about the harm of social media from its own research. However, company executives continued to increase the addictive qualities of their platforms to maximize profits, leading parents and lawyers to sue Facebook and Instagram.
The November 2023 testimony of a second whistleblower, former engineering director Arturo Bejar, corroborated Frances Haugen’s testimony. Mr. Bejar also publicized internal Facebook documents that showed a pattern of turning a blind eye to harmful content, even after Marc Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and other upper-level executives were personally informed about specific harms.
Problematic Social Media Use Causes Real Harm
Today’s youth are experiencing mental health challenges at a level never seen before. According to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, ten years of data “make it clear that young people in the U.S. are collectively experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act.”
Clinical studies have proven that social media platforms manipulate the brain’s reward system by encouraging a dopamine release through various interactions such as likes, shares, and comments. Adolescents are especially susceptible because their developing brains place a high value on social rewards. This leads to compulsive use.
Adolescents are uniquely vulnerable to mental health effects from social media use because they are more peer-dependent than adults and less averse to risk-taking. Plaintiffs in the litigation allege that the companies target children and exploit their vulnerabilities for financial gain.
