Social Media Public Nuisance Claims Must Be Addressed by Facebook, TikTok, Other Tech Companies

A federal judge has determined that the owners of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and other major social media platforms must face claims brought by public school systems throughout the U.S., which allege that the apps pose a public nuisance, due to designs and algorithms that foster addiction among youths.

Meta, Alphabet Inc., Google LLC, YouTube LLC, Snap Inc., ByteDance Inc. and other popular internet companies currently face more than 600 social media addiction lawsuits, including claims filed by parents and young adults throughout the U.S., as well as a number of different school districts that have been left to deal with the impact the apps have had on children’s mental health in recent years.

All of the lawsuits involve similar allegations, indicating that the platforms were intentionally designed to manipulate and maximize user engagement, as part of a coordinated effort to addict teens to social media. These tactics have led to destructive behavior, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other long-term psychological damage for a generation of teens in America.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints filed throughout the federal court system all social media lawsuits over teen addiction were consolidated in an MDL last year, centralizing the cases before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California, for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings. This included both the individual injury lawsuits, as well as the school district lawsuits.

The school districts’ lawsuits against Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and other platforms seek reimbursement for costs incurred in recent years establishing various mental health programs, mobile crisis units and other measures to combat social media addictions among students. However, the platforms argued at a series of hearings this summer that legal precedents at the state level ban public nuisance claims that do not show a direct causal link between their platforms and consumers.

In a court order (PDF) issued on November 15, Judge Rogers mostly rejected these arguments, noting that they were only applicable to a handful of states’ laws, including Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island and South Carolina. While public nuisance claims under those state laws were dismissed, the vast majority were allowed to move forward.

“Public nuisance, like negligence, provides a flexible mechanism to redress evolving means for causing harm,” Judge Rogers wrote in a 28 page decision. “While some other jurisdictions have imposed land- or product-related limitations on public nuisance claims, others have expressly permitted actions outside of that context, and none of the at-issue states have formally adopted such limitations. While public nuisance law remains in flux, the Court declines to import these limitations and hold that the supreme courts of the at-issue states would per se prohibit the kind of action brought by the school districts under the alleged facts of this case.”

Social Media Addiction Bellwether Trials Move Forward

To help manage the litigation and gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the claims, Judge Rogers has indicated that several bellwether trials will be held involving both individual student injuries and school district claims.

She originally scheduled the first social media addiction bellwether trial to begin on October 25, 2025, and the parties have identified a pool of injury claims that are currently going through case-specific discovery in preparation for this trial date. However, last month that first trial was pushed back, and is now not likely to begin until sometime in 2026.

The court is scheduled to hold a status conference on Friday, to discuss the status of the social media addiction lawsuits and ongoing efforts to prepare claims for early trial dates.

On the same day as Judge Rogers’ decision on the motions to dismiss, the parties filed a joint agenda (PDF) detailing what will be discussed at the conference.

Plaintiffs have requested that the pool for potential bellwether lawsuits be narrowed, and defendants are expected to appeal the judge’s recent motion to dismiss ruling.

Although the outcome of these early trial dates will not have any binding impact on other families pursuing lawsuits, or claims brought by school districts, the average payouts awarded by the juries may impact the amount the companies may be required to pay in any social media settlements over the teen addiction problems.