2026 is the year of legal reckoning for social media

Over the next year, top social media executives are expected to testify to defend their companies from a torrent of allegations about their failure to protect children.

The first of several trials is set to begin this month in California, when Meta, TikTok and YouTube face claims that technology addiction harms teenagers’ mental health. This case is just the tip of the legal iceberg. It begins one of two sets of so-called pilot trials, in which judges will hear a selection of cases representing similar claims, the outcomes of which will likely determine settlement amounts for the remaining cases. There are still thousands more cases behind them.

It’s important because it has been able to overcome objections to Section 230 — which protects online platforms from being held liable for their users’ speech — to reach a full pilot, and because of the evidence it could reveal regarding what social media platforms knew and did — or didn’t do — about the harms they could cause to children. “When we started doing this work, it was a given that we couldn’t even get past a motion to dismiss,” Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Legal Center, which is representing the plaintiff in the first of the trials taking place this month, said at a recent news conference. “The simple fact that a social media company would have to stand trial in front of a jury and be held accountable for its design decisions is unprecedented in American jurisprudence. This has never happened before.”

All of the companies mentioned in the cases — Meta, Google’s YouTube, TikTok and Snap — say they have strong policies to keep kids safe online. “Providing a safer and healthier experience for young people has always been at the core of our work,” YouTube spokesperson Jose Castañeda said in a statement. “The allegations made in these complaints are simply not true.” Meta spokesman Andy Stone pointed to the company’s latest news Blog postwhich said that blaming social media companies for teen mental health issues “oversimplifies a serious problem.” Stone added: “We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident that the evidence will demonstrate our long-standing commitment to supporting young people.” TikTok had not provided a comment as of press time, but has defended its trust and safety measures in the past.

Snap has reached a settlement with the plaintiff in the first case to go to trial, and Snap spokeswoman Monique Bellamy said in a statement that “the parties are pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.”

In trials, plaintiffs are seeking financial damages and changes to social media platforms. But regardless of the outcome, new revelations about these experiments could create more pressure on both companies and lawmakers to enact changes.

How lead cases work

Thousands of individuals, school districts and state attorneys general from across the country have filed a lawsuit against social media companies that they claim have harmed teens’ mental health. Because the cases addressed similar topics requiring similar discovery and legal procedures, they were combined to more efficiently manage the caseload. These case groups are known as Judicial Council Coordination Procedures (JCCP) for the state system and Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) for the federal system. Within each group, a subset of the leading cases will be tried first and is roughly representative of the claims of the entire group. When one vanguard finishes, they will move on to the next.

The idea is that by trying out a sample of cases, parties will have an idea of ​​how juries will tend to rule on certain types of claims, and how much damages they might be awarded, which can determine the terms of the broader settlement. (This is different from a class action, where a group of like parties join in one lawsuit and the outcome applies equally to all of them.) Additionally, evidence from prior trials can be referenced in subsequent trials — so prominent tech CEOs, for example, are likely to testify only once.

Individual cases or defendants may choose to settle at any time, but the parties will likely eventually attempt to reach a global settlement that resolves the remaining, larger pile of cases—similar to what happened in litigation over The opioid epidemic.

While many defendants may face similar claims during trials, each company will have the opportunity to present its own case, and a jury may find some liable, but not others.

California state court cases

The first social media product liability cases are scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in state court in Los Angeles before Judge Carolyn Cole. The case concerns an unnamed teenager identified as KGM, now 19, who says she suffered from addiction to several social media apps which led to other mental health issues. A week before the trial, Snap has reached a settlementBut the trial will still include Meta, TikTok and YouTube as defendants, as of Monday. The company’s top executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as well as KGM, are expected to testify

The trial is expected to last at least six weeks. Once this is completed, the court will move down the list of initial three cases.

The federal cases consolidated into the MDL in the Northern District of California include cases brought by school districts, individual plaintiffs and state attorneys general. The first six cases will represent school districts across the country that essentially argue that the design of social media platforms has kept their students using them compulsively, leading school districts to spend resources on mental health and other issues. The Board of Education in Breathitt County, Kentucky, will be the first to try his case starting in June before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland.

This is the claim from which A A large collection of internal documents of a social media company This has already been revealed, revealing, for example, that a user experience researcher at Meta compared Instagram to a drug. The internal communications are just one example of the types of evidence that could emerge in various trials in the coming months.

An important hearing is scheduled for Monday, where the judge will hear arguments on the motion for summary judgment. The results of this hearing will determine which cases are allowed in trials later this year.

Starting February 2, Meta will face trial Submitted by the New Mexico Attorney General For allegedly creating a “market for predators searching for children” on its platforms. To bring it to trial, the case in particular Overcome arguments From Meta that Article 230 should protect it from litigation.

To test their claims, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office created accounts on meta services posing as children or parents seeking to be trafficked, and said they found that the service quickly exposed the accounts to strangers and gained a large number of adult male followers. Using accounts to trap minors, the government A number of people accused of child smuggling were arrested Who the Attorney General’s Office said solicited sex from the accounts. “While New Mexico makes inflammatory, irrelevant and distracting arguments, we are focused on demonstrating our long-standing commitment to supporting young people,” Stone, the Meta spokesman, said in a statement.