> When Online Platforms Cause Real-World Harm, Survivors Deserve to Be Heard
Social media has transformed the way young people communicate, learn, build relationships, and experience the world. But for some children, teenagers, and young adults, these platforms have also become pathways to serious harm.
Families across the country are pursuing legal claims alleging that social media companies designed products and features that encouraged compulsive use while failing to adequately protect young users from foreseeable risks.
Other families have experienced a different but related form of harm: grooming, sextortion, sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), coercion, harassment, or predatory contact facilitated through social media, gaming platforms, messaging services, and other online spaces.
At Liberty Law, we believe technology companies should be held accountable when their products, practices, or failures to protect users contribute to serious harm.
If you or your child has been harmed online, you deserve to understand your rights, your choices, and what legal options may be available.
Confidential consultations are available.
Call 510-645-1000 or 415-896-1000
Or click here to reach out confidentially:
¿Vive en México, Colombia, Argentina u otro país de América Latina?
¿Usted o algún miembro de su familia ha sufrido daños relacionados con el uso de redes sociales?
Conozca sus derechos y las opciones legales que pueden estar disponibles para usted.
Puede conversar en español con nuestro equipo sobre su situación y las posibles opciones legales.
Todas las consultas son confidenciales.
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What Is the Social Media Adolescent Addiction Litigation?
Thousands of families have brought claims alleging that major social media companies designed their platforms in ways that encouraged excessive or compulsive use by children and teenagers and contributed to serious physical, psychological, and emotional injuries.
Many of these federal cases have been coordinated in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) known as:
SOCIAL MEDIA MDL
MDL No. 3047
In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation
An MDL is not the same as a class action. It is a federal procedure that allows lawsuits involving similar factual and legal issues to be coordinated before one court for certain pretrial proceedings.
Individual plaintiffs generally maintain their own claims, and every person’s circumstances must be evaluated individually.
The litigation includes claims involving major platforms such as:
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- YouTube
Plaintiffs have alleged that certain platform features were intentionally designed to maximize engagement and keep young people online for longer periods of time.
These allegations involve features such as endless scrolling, algorithmic recommendations, notifications, autoplay, social validation features, and other mechanisms designed to encourage continued engagement.
Social Media Harm Can Take Many Forms
Online harm is not limited to excessive screen time. Social media, gaming platforms, messaging services, and other online spaces can expose children and young people to different forms of harm, from compulsive platform use to grooming, sextortion, and sexual exploitation.
If you or your child has experienced serious harm connected to an online platform, you may have legal options. Every situation is different, and an attorney can help you understand what options may be available.
Social Media Addiction & Compulsive Use
Certain platform features are alleged to encourage young users to remain online for prolonged periods and develop patterns of compulsive use.
For some young people, this can significantly disrupt sleep, school, relationships, daily activities, and emotional well-being.
Online Grooming & Sexual Exploitation
Predators can use social media, gaming platforms, messaging applications, and online communities to identify and contact children and teenagers.
Grooming may begin gradually. A person may build trust, offer attention or gifts, misrepresent their identity, move conversations into private channels, or slowly introduce sexual content before escalating to manipulation, coercion, or abuse.
The responsibility for exploitation belongs with the person who committed it, not with the child who was targeted.
Sextortion & Digital Coercion
Sextortion occurs when someone uses intimate images, videos, personal information, or threats to pressure another person into providing additional sexual content, money, or something else of value.
Young people may be threatened with exposure to their parents, friends, classmates, schools, or online communities.
What begins as an online interaction can quickly become a frightening cycle of threats and control.
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)
When sexual images or videos involving a child are created, shared, uploaded, traded, or redistributed online, the harm can continue long after the original abuse occurred.
Depending on the circumstances, survivors may have legal options involving individuals or entities responsible for creating, distributing, possessing, or facilitating the spread of this material.
AI-Generated & Deepfake Sexual Exploitation
Technology has created new ways to weaponize a person’s image. AI tools can be used to create sexually explicit images that appear to depict a real person even when the underlying sexual image never existed.
The fact that an image is artificially generated does not mean the harm is imaginary.
Harm Through Gaming & Messaging Platforms
Online exploitation is not limited to traditional social media. Children and teenagers increasingly communicate through gaming platforms, private messaging applications, virtual communities, and other digital spaces.
Cases involving platforms such as Roblox, Discord, Telegram, and others may involve grooming, predatory communications, sextortion, CSAM, sexual exploitation, unsafe interactions, or failures to respond appropriately to reports of abuse.
Signs That a Young Person May Be Experiencing Online Harm
There is no single way a child or teenager responds to online exploitation or harmful platform use.
Changes may be gradual, and some young people may not disclose what happened because they are frightened, ashamed, confused, or worried that they will be blamed or punished.
Possible signs may include:
- Sudden secrecy surrounding devices or online activity
- Significant changes in sleep
- Withdrawal from friends, family, school, or activities
- Compulsive or difficult-to-control platform use
- Unexpected contact with unknown adults or accounts
- Receiving unexplained money, gifts, or virtual currency
- Anxiety when unable to access a particular platform
- Sudden emotional or behavioral changes
- Fear that photographs, videos, or private conversations will be exposed
- Requests for money connected to an online threat
- Unexpected sexualized communications or content
None of these signs alone proves that abuse or exploitation has occurred.
What matters is creating a space where a young person can speak without fear of punishment or judgment.
If Your Child Tells You Something Happened Online
How we respond to disclosure matters.
A child who has experienced grooming, sextortion, exploitation, or another form of online abuse may already feel that control has been taken away from them.
They should not lose more of that control when they ask for help.
Listen. Believe them. Avoid blame.
Children can be manipulated by people who deliberately understand how to build trust and exploit vulnerability.
Whenever possible, preserve messages, usernames, account information, photographs, screenshots, emails, payment records, reports made to the platform, and other relevant evidence.
Before deleting accounts, conversations, or devices, consider speaking with an attorney about preserving potentially important evidence.
Most importantly, remind the young person that what happened does not define them.
Can a Social Media or Technology Company Be Held Accountable?
Potentially.
The answer depends on the facts of the individual case, the platform involved, the type of harm, the applicable law, and other circumstances.
Current litigation has raised questions about whether technology companies adequately protected young users and whether certain platform designs, recommendation systems, safety practices, reporting mechanisms, moderation systems, warnings, or other features contributed to foreseeable harm.
A legal claim may involve questions such as:
- How was the platform designed?
- What features encouraged continued or compulsive use?
- How did the platform recommend content or connect users?
- What safety protections existed for minors?
- Were reports or warning signs ignored?
- What did the company know about risks to young users?
- Could additional safeguards have prevented or reduced the harm?
- What injuries resulted?
Every case is different. An attorney can evaluate the specific circumstances and explain what legal options may be available.
Trauma-Informed Representation Matters
For survivors of online exploitation, pursuing accountability should not mean giving up control all over again.
At Liberty Law, our approach is trauma-informed and survivor-centered.
That means we recognize that discussing exploitation, sexual abuse, coercion, intimate images, self-harm, or other deeply personal experiences can be difficult.
We believe survivors should be treated as people first—not as evidence, claims, or case numbers.
Our role is to help you understand your choices, answer your questions, protect your privacy where the law allows, and give you the information you need to decide what comes next.
You do not have to make every decision at once.
You do not have to tell your story perfectly.
Speaking with an attorney does not obligate you to file a lawsuit.
Why Liberty Law?
Giving a Voice to the Voiceless
Liberty Law is a nationally recognized, award-winning law firm dedicated to seeking justice for survivors of sexual abuse, sexual assault, harassment, trafficking, exploitation, and other serious violations of individual rights.
Founder and lead attorney Micha Star Liberty has spent decades advocating for people whose voices have too often been ignored by powerful individuals, corporations, and institutions.
Our work involving technology-facilitated harm is informed by our broader experience representing survivors of:
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Child sexual abuse
- Human trafficking
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
- Deepfake sexual exploitation
- Online sexual exploitation
- Institutional misconduct
- Civil rights violations
We understand that these cases can involve complicated intersections between trauma, technology, corporate responsibility, privacy, and the law.
We bring both compassion and strategic advocacy to that complexity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Social Media MDL 3047 a class action?
No. MDL stands for multidistrict litigation. It allows federal cases involving common factual and legal issues to be coordinated before one judge for certain pretrial proceedings. Individual plaintiffs generally retain their own claims.
Which platforms are involved in the Social Media MDL?
The federal litigation includes claims involving major social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. The particular defendants and claims depend on each case.
Vivo en México o en otro país de América Latina. ¿Puedo contactar a Liberty Law por daños relacionados con el uso de redes sociales?
Sí. Liberty Law recibe consultas de personas y familias de México, Colombia, Argentina y otros países de América Latina.
La posibilidad de que existan opciones legales dependerá de las circunstancias particulares de cada caso, incluida la naturaleza del daño, la plataforma involucrada, el lugar donde ocurrió el daño y otras consideraciones legales.
Si no está seguro de si su situación podría dar lugar a un posible reclamo, puede completar nuestro formulario confidencial en español para que nuestro equipo pueda revisarlo.
COMPLETE THE SPANISH INTAKE FORM:
Are Roblox, Discord, or Telegram part of Social Media MDL 3047?
Claims involving gaming and communication platforms such as Roblox, Discord, and Telegram may involve similar issues, but they are not necessarily part of the core Social Media MDL. Claims involving these platforms may proceed separately and should be evaluated individually.
What if the harm involved grooming or sexual exploitation rather than social media addiction?
You may still have legal options.
Online exploitation claims can involve grooming, sextortion, sexual abuse, CSAM, trafficking, coercion, harassment, nonconsensual intimate imagery, deepfakes, or other technology-facilitated harms.
These cases may involve different legal theories from social media addiction claims.
What if my child voluntarily communicated with the person who harmed them?
That does not necessarily prevent a legal claim.
Grooming frequently involves building trust and gradually manipulating a young person. A child responding to messages, sharing information, or engaging with someone online does not automatically mean that later exploitation or abuse was consensual or that the child is responsible for what occurred.
What if intimate images are still circulating online?
Speak with an attorney about your options. Depending on the circumstances, there may be legal remedies involving the creation, possession, distribution, or continued circulation of sexual images involving a minor.
Do we have to file a lawsuit if we contact Liberty Law?
No.
Speaking with us is an opportunity to understand your rights and options. You are not obligated to pursue a claim or hire Liberty Law simply because you contact us.
Your Story Belongs to You
Online exploitation can leave survivors and families feeling as though control has been taken away—from their privacy, their identity, their relationships, or their sense of safety.
The legal process should not repeat that harm.
At Liberty Law, we believe survivors deserve information, choices, dignity, and a voice in what happens next.
If you or your child has experienced serious harm connected to social media, an online platform, a gaming service, AI-generated sexual imagery, grooming, sextortion, or online sexual exploitation, we are here to listen.
You can speak with us confidentially about what happened and learn what legal options may be available.
There is no obligation to pursue a case simply because you reach out.
Contact Liberty Law
Confidential consultations are available.
If you or your child has experienced serious harm connected to social media, an online platform, a gaming service, AI-generated sexual imagery, grooming, sextortion, or online sexual exploitation, we are here to listen.
CALL:
Oakland: (510) 645-1000
San Francisco: (415) 896-1000
COMPLETE OUR CONFIDENTIAL INTAKE FORM:
¿Prefiere comunicarse con nosotros en español?
Las consultas son confidenciales y nuestro equipo está disponible para atenderle en español.
Si usted o su hijo/a ha sufrido daños graves relacionados con las redes sociales, una plataforma en línea, un servicio de videojuegos, imágenes sexuales generadas mediante inteligencia artificial, grooming, sextorsión o explotación sexual en línea, estamos aquí para escucharle.
COMPLETE NUESTRO FORMULARIO CONFIDENCIAL EN ESPAÑOL:
There is no obligation to pursue a case simply because you reach out.
Giving a Voice to the Voiceless.
