After years of sidestepping litigation and regulation, tech companies with products and content aimed at minors are now enmeshed in a thicket of lawsuits and government pushback over their handling of child safety online.
State attorneys general, local school districts and thousands of individuals are suing social media and gaming companies, accusing them of addicting young users to digital platforms and exposing them to violent or sexually explicit material and online predators. Marquee tech brands like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and game giant Roblox, have been among the litigation targets.
TikTok alone faces suits from 25 state AGs. The latest is in Florida, where the attorney general announced on June 15 that he had sued the social media company in state court. Many of the AGs are relying on state consumer protection laws and in cases like Florida’s, on recently enacted age verification regulations aimed at curbing social media use by children.
Whether such laws will pass constitutional muster is an open question. So, too, is the ultimate fate of cases brought by the states. But the broader direction is clear: Child safety has become a central litigation and regulatory risk for the tech industry.
Florida’s Case
The suit against TikTok in Florida is typical of many of the cases brought by state officials. In its complaint, filed in St. Lucie County, Fla., the state alleges that TikTok has employed “harmful addictive-by-design features specifically targeted and tailored to exploit, manipulate and capitalize” on the developing brains of younger users. “Addiction is TikTok’s business model,” the complaint says.
The complaint accuses TikTok of violating H.B. 3, the state’s online child protection law, which took effect in 2025. The law bans children under age 14 from social media platforms entirely and says that 15- and 16-year-olds can only create accounts with parental consent. Florida accuses TikTok of allowing user accounts that violate both of those restrictions.
TikTok Faces New Allegations
Florida is one of 19 states that have passed a social media age verification law in recent years, data shows. While more such laws are likely, the path ahead for state age verification regulations appears rocky. According to a February article in the Harvard Law Review, companies have brought successful First Amendment challenges to age verification laws in federal court and all but one judge has said the laws likely violate the First Amendment. The Supreme Court is watching as well, the article said, citing a 2025 concurrence by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that called Mississippi’s age verification law “likely unconstitutional.”
Florida’s law, in fact, was initially blocked by a federal judge on constitutional grounds, but the ruling was temporarily paused while the state appeals the decision. In March, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit heard arguments in the case. While it is unclear how the judges will rule, Law.com reported that the panel appeared skeptical of the arguments by tech companies that the law was a blanket violation of minors’ First Amendment rights.
Building on Other Cases
Florida’s claims do not rest solely on age verification, however. The state is also alleging that TikTok broke state consumer protection laws by deceiving parents about the safety and appropriateness of the content on the site. “TikTok knowingly deceives parents and allows children to be exposed to harmful and inappropriate content in direct violation of Florida law,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a news release announcing the suit.
Citing internal company documents, Florida says TikTok employees knew about the site’s addictive features, including how its algorithm might affect young users’ opportunities to sleep, eat and interact with others. “The product in itself has baked into it compulsive use,” an internal document said, according to the suit.
A Growing Litigation Playbook
In a sign of how state AGs are building on each other’s claims, the internal documents Florida cited were featured in similar cases against TikTok filed by a coalition of 13 states and the District of Columbia in October 2024.
To date, those states’ cases have been clearing preliminary hurdles. State trial court judges in New York, California, Massachusetts and Kentucky have ruled against TikTok’s motions to dismiss. Those decisions have rejected the company’s arguments that the cases are barred by the First Amendment and that the company is shielded from liability under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996.
“The First Amendment…does not categorically immunize commercial entities from applicable laws regulating deceptive conduct or misleading commercial speech,” Judge Kathryn Gabhart of the Scott County, Ky., Circuit Court wrote in a February ruling.
A Bellwether Verdict
The state AGs’ TikTok cases are merely one theater in the multifront litigation war now facing social media and gaming companies. In California alone, some 2,000 state cases accusing social media companies of addicting and harming users have been consolidated in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Some 10,000 federal cases are consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In a blockbuster verdict in March, a Los Angeles state court jury held Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube liable for a young woman’s social media addiction and the harm she suffered as a result. The jury awarded the young woman $6 million. The verdict came in a bellwether trial that is likely to provide a roadmap in other pending cases against social media companies.
Testing a New Legal Theory
Plaintiffs successfully argued that addiction and other harms were the result of a product defect caused by deliberately and negligently developed addictive features designed by social media companies to hook young users. By focusing on the product rather than social media content, the plaintiffs were able to bypass arguments that might have previously failed under Section 230 or on First Amendment grounds.
In early June, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl ruled that the verdict and damages could stand, rejecting arguments by Meta and YouTube that the jury’s decision was based upon protected content rather than flaws in the companies’ product designs.
Meta v. New Mexico
In another major March verdict, a state court jury in Santa Fe, N.M., found that Meta endangered children and misled consumers about the safety of its social media platforms. The jury ordered the company to pay $375 million for misleading consumers.
The case followed an investigation by The Guardian newspaper into child sex trafficking on Facebook and Instagram and an undercover sting operation by the state attorney general’s office. Three men were arrested for preying on children and the state sued Meta.
The Stakes for Meta
In May, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez again squared off against Meta, this time in a bench trial over whether the company has created a public nuisance and should be forced to make changes in the way it does business. Torrez has asked the court to award the state $953 million. According to news accounts, New Mexico is also seeking an injunction that would force the company to improve child safety measures and to post consumer warnings on its sites.
Meta, in court documents, insists that Torrez has failed to prove the case and that New Mexico is seeking “an extraordinary array of injunctive relief that would ask this Court (through a monitor) to essentially run significant parts of the business of one of the biggest and most advanced technology companies in the world.”
A decision in the case now rests with Bryan Biedscheid, chief judge of New Mexico’s First Judicial District Court.
Roblox Under Fire
Gaming platforms are also facing heightened legal scrutiny. In December, more than 160 cases against digital gaming giant Roblox were consolidated in a federal multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California.
According to court documents, plaintiffs claim that children using Roblox were sexually exploited and, in some cases, assaulted by predators who targeted and groomed them. The cases assert substantially identical claims against the company for fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, negligence, failure to warn and design defects.
In a 2024 report, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the site had a “pedophile problem” and “unlike other mass-market social media apps, which bar kids under 13 or shunt them into sanitized versions, Roblox was made for children.”
Gaming Platforms in the Spotlight
Along with individuals, state officials have targeted Roblox and in May, a pair of national child safety advocacy organizations—Fairplay and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation—asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the company.
In their complaint, the groups argued that Roblox’s “engagement-maximizing design features, virtual currency system and voice and text chat communication features are developmentally inappropriate for the platform’s massive young user base and pose a substantial risk of harm.” According to media accounts, Roblox strongly disputed the claims and noted that it requires age verification for users to chat with other players.
How the Industry Is Responding
Social media and gaming companies have responded to the growing list of lawsuits and legislation by arguing that they prioritize child safety issues and have taken steps to help minors and their parents avoid inappropriate content and contacts. In Florida, for instance, a TikTok spokesperson told Reuters that the company has informed users under age 14 that their accounts will be suspended and that it is “continuing to update its platform in Florida in response to state law.”
Tech companies and trade groups like NetChoice have also fought back hard in court, arguing that litigation and new laws are too broad, violate Section 230, burden protected speech, interfere with the rights of parents and raise deep privacy concerns. “We’re appealing unfavorable decisions, defending our wins and preparing for new challenges as legislatures continue to test constitutional limits in the digital age. When states go rogue, we’ll be there,” NetChoice said in a website post reviewing its 2025 litigation efforts.
Fighting Claims and Settling Cases
At the same time, companies have also selectively settled claims—making payments and agreeing to certain product adjustments while avoiding broad admissions of fault. In the Los Angeles bellwether case, for instance, Snapchat and TikTok both reached confidential settlements with the plaintiff just before trial was to begin. Neither company admitted liability.
Also on the eve of trial, social media companies Meta, Snap Inc., YouTube parent Alphabet and TikTok owner ByteDance agreed to pay $27 million in settlements to the Breathitt County, Ky., School District over claims that they were responsible for mental health issues among students. According to Reuters, the agreement, reached in May, avoided a trial that was likely to have been a bellwether in school district litigation against the companies that has been consolidated in the Northern District of California.
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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms® as senior content consultant.