RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The Social Media Victims Law Center accused the companies of creating addictive and dangerous platforms.
Tada Images/Shutterstock Another lawsuit is aiming to hold social media platforms accountable for their claimed impact on younger users. The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) filed a personal injury and wrongful death lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google. The legal action accused these companies and their platforms of creating addictive and dangerous products that contributed to the death of four kids.
The lawsuit accused the social media platforms of having "ignored repeated warnings from their own researchers, concealed evidence of harm, and built systems that profiled minors during moments of psychological vulnerability." The SMVLC also alleged that these companies tracked user behaviors to push certain content, including "diet and beauty advertisements, appearance-changing filters, social comparison features" and more, which led to "depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation" in the name of increasing user engagement. The deaths related to the lawsuit happened between July 2024 and September 2025 in Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota and Tennessee, but SMVLC filed the lawsuit in Delaware after internal documents from these social media companies were unsealed in recent state and federal court proceedings.
We reached out to the companies named in the lawsuit and will update the story when we hear back. In a statement to Engadget, a Google spokesperson said, "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with mental health and parenting experts, we've built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. We send our deepest sympathies to the families and are reviewing the claims in this lawsuit."
Besides this latest legal action, the same platforms are facing other similar lawsuits. Earlier this summer, four US states sued Meta , claiming that both Facebook and Instagram had addictive designs and misled the public about how safe these apps were. A month prior, Meta, Snap and TikTok each individually settled a social media addiction lawsuit that was filed by a Kentucky school district.
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