Is Social Media the Next Big Tobacco? Public Nuisance Litigation and the Limits of Section 230

by Kennedy Aikey, Associate Member, University of Cincinnati Law Review Vol. 94

I. Introduction

Over the past decade, social media has become one of the most influential parts of young people’s daily lives.¹ Teenagers now spend hours each day on social media platforms designed to capture their attention through endless streams of content, algorithmic recommendations, and constant notifications.² However, researchers and public health officials have raised concerns about the impact these social media platforms may have on young people’s mental health, pointing to increasing rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm among children and teenagers since the rise of social media usage.³

As evidence of these harms continues to emerge, social media companies are beginning to face a wave of lawsuits alleging that their platforms were intentionally designed to be addictive.⁴ Plaintiffs, including individuals, school districts, and state governments, argue that companies such as Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube knowingly created systems that promote addictive, compulsive use, particularly among young people.⁵ Drawing comparisons to earlier litigation against the tobacco and opioid industries, these lawsuits frame social media addiction as a public health crisis and seek to hold technology companies accountable through public nuisance and other tort claims, like negligent product design.⁶

Despite the growing number of claims, social media companies continue to rely on a powerful legal defense and shield: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.⁷ For decades, courts interpreted this statute broadly and granted online platforms immunity from liability for harms related to user-generated content and algorithmic recommendations.⁸ As a result, courts now face the question of whether Section 230 should continue to shield social media companies from liability when plaintiffs allege that the platforms themselves were designed to encourage addictive behavior.

This Article will examine whether Section 230 provides social media companies with immunity from tort claims. Part II provides background on social media’s impact on young people’s mental health, defines public nuisance, explores Section 230, and examines current lawsuits against social media companies. Part III argues that legal claims against social media platforms for public nuisance may be a viable way for plaintiffs to avoid Section 230 barriers to hold technology companies liable. Part IV briefly concludes by discussing how current litigation will shape the future of social media liability.

II. Background

A. Youth Mental Health in the Age of Smartphones and Social Media

Smartphones and daily internet use have become ingrained in everyday life in the United States.⁹ Teens are constantly checking their phones at least once an hour.¹⁰ Some studies have found that 40% of teens check their phones every 15 minutes or less.¹¹ Specifically regarding social media usage, teens in the United States spend between 90 minutes and 5 hours a day on social media.¹² More than half of teenagers report that it would be at least somewhat difficult to give up social media usage.¹³ As a result, researchers have concluded that social media promotes compulsive use and addictive behavior.¹⁴

As social media usage increased, children’s mental health has declined.¹⁵ From 2009 to 2019, the number of high school students who reported feeling “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” increased by 40%.¹⁶ Not only were depression and other mental health issues on the rise, but these issues resulted in permanent consequences.¹⁷ The suicide rates among people between ten years old and twenty-four years old more than doubled between 2007 and 2018.¹⁸ The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend as children consistently spent hours inside on their phones and social media.¹⁹

The correlation between the rise of social media and the decline in mental well-being among young people is not a coincidence.²⁰ Although the rise of social media was initially viewed positively, there is a dark side to it.²¹ Studies repeatedly show that social media use is closely correlated with depression, anxiety, and psychological distress.²² This is because social media feeds teens content surrounding mental health issues and suicide, which can lead children and teenagers to engage in self-harm.²³ Further, many teens are exposed to unwanted sexual content through social media.²⁴ Additionally, social media has created a space where children are easily accessible to adults and are sometimes tricked into sending explicit images or extorted.²⁵ As these issues become more widespread, it is becoming clear that legal action may be required to help protect young people in the future.

B. Public Nuisance as a Tool for Addressing Widespread Public Harm

Plaintiffs could hold social media companies accountable for their addictive platforms and impact on mental health through the tort of public nuisance. A public nuisance is “an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.”²⁶ Interferences may be unreasonable when it involves significant interference with public health.²⁷ There are two remedies available for public nuisance claims: (1) injunctive relief, requiring the defendant to stop or change the negative behavior to protect the public from the ongoing or threatened harm, and (2) monetary damages for past harm.²⁸ Public nuisance actions are most frequently filed by state actors against corporations engaging in conduct that negatively impacts public health.²⁹ And unlike traditional tort claims, which often require plaintiffs to demonstrate individualized injury, public nuisance focuses on harms that affect the public at large.³⁰

The most notorious public nuisance case to recover millions of dollars was the litigation against the Big Tobacco industry, in which large companies like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds were accused of hiding the harms of cigarettes.³¹ The Big Tobacco litigation created permanent changes to the way the tobacco industry advertises tobacco products.³² Similarly, public nuisance claims have also been successful against prescription opioid companies, which have resulted in large settlements and changes to the business practices of many opioid manufacturers and distributors due to the detrimental impact the opioid epidemic has caused.³³ These lawsuits demonstrate how public nuisance claims can be used to hold companies accountable for harms that extend beyond individual consumers, prompting government intervention due to the substantial costs on public resources.³⁴

C. The Emerging Wave of Social Media Litigation

Thousands of school districts, attorneys general, and individuals have filed lawsuits accusing social media companies of designing their platforms to be addictive, resulting in harm. The core argument of these lawsuits is that, like cigarettes, social media was made to be addictive.³⁵ Features of social media, like “infinite scrolling, algorithmic recommendations, notifications, and videos that play automatically lead to compulsive use.”³⁶ Plaintiffs of these lawsuits claim that social media is the cause of a multitude of problems like mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and, in the worst cases, self-harm and suicide.³⁷ These cases could lead to social media companies facing their Big Tobacco litigation moment as the lawsuits rely on similar arguments.

In February of 2026, a landmark trial against Meta and YouTube commenced, in which the plaintiff, identified as K.G.M., accused the social media companies of designing their platforms to be addictive, resulting in personal injury and other harm.³⁸ This trial took place in Los Angeles, California, and could be the first of many.³⁹ K.G.M. originally sued YouTube, TikTok, Snap, and Meta in 2023; however, she settled with Snap and TikTok with undisclosed terms before the trial.⁴⁰ K.M.G. has been on social media for almost her entire life; she is currently 20 years old, but her social media usage began around age 8.⁴¹ She first created a YouTube account, then, at age 9, joined Instagram, followed by Musical.ly (renamed TikTok) at age 10, and finally, she joined Snapchat at age 11.⁴² She claims that due to her social media addiction as a child, she experiences anxiety, depression, and body image issues.⁴³ During opening arguments, K.G.M.’s attorney accused social media apps of being “digital casinos” that profited from addictive behavior.⁴⁴

K.G.M.’s attorneys presented documents that imply that Meta and YouTube knew about the harm their platforms were creating.⁴⁵ Plaintiff’s attorney presented an internal document from YouTube in which its parent company referred to YouTube products as slot machines and included an image of a casino.⁴⁶ The document said, “These are attention casinos. The house always wins.”⁴⁷ Further, the plaintiff’s attorney describes two instances in which Meta employees explicitly said that the company’s tactics reminded them of tobacco companies.⁴⁸ An internal Meta document from 2018 showed Meta’s understanding of how impactful social media would be on children, the documents said, “If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”⁴⁹

In response, Meta and YouTube denied these allegations.⁵⁰ Meta argues that its platforms, Instagram and Facebook, are no more addictive than television or books.⁵¹ Meta’s lawyers also claim that K.G.M.’s mental health issues are caused by her bad home life, not solely by social media.⁵² Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri have both testified on the stand, defending Meta and claiming that the company did everything it could to keep children safe and maintain “freedom of expression.”⁵³ YouTube claims it is not a social media app, and regarding its impact on K.G.M., she spent less than half an hour a day on the app, which could indicate it was not addictive.⁵⁴

On March 25, 2026, the jury in this case returned a verdict holding Meta and YouTube liable for their negligent, addictive product design.⁵⁵ Meta now must pay $4.2 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages, and YouTube must pay $1.8 million.⁵⁶ This lawsuit is a bellwether for future lawsuits, meaning it is the first of its kind and will be used to gauge how judges and juries will respond to the legal theories and what damages may be awarded.⁵⁷ K.G.M. securing a victory against these large social media companies will change the trajectory of future lawsuits. K.G.M.’s case is the first of a series of nine cases that are set to be heard in Los Angeles regarding the effects of social media.⁵⁸ Starting this summer, a series of school districts and states plan to go to trial in federal court, claiming that social media is a public nuisance, seeking to recoup damages for having to shoulder the costs of treating a whole generation of young people struggling with mental health issues due to social media addiction.⁵⁹ Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is highly relevant to these trials because, in the past, it provided broad immunity to social media companies.

D. Section 230 and the Liability Shield for Social Media Platforms

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is known as the twenty-six words that created the internet.⁶⁰ Section 230 provides, “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”⁶¹ Further, Section 230(e)(3) clarifies, “[n]o cause of action may be brought, and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”⁶² This federal statute provides social media platforms with immunity from state-law tort claims arising from harm caused by third-party content creators.⁶³ Since its adoption in 1996, this statute has granted broad immunity to social media platforms from liability for users who claim the platforms caused them harm.⁶⁴

The Supreme Court of the United States has yet to face a major challenge to Section 230, leaving the circuit courts to interpret the statute.⁶⁵ Circuit courts have routinely held that social media platforms are not only immune from liability for the publication of third-party content, but also from liability for the platforms’ own algorithmic content recommendations.⁶⁶ In 1997, the Fourth Circuit held in Zeran v. America Online that Section 230 bars “lawsuits seeking to hold a service provider liable for its exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone, or alter content.”⁶⁷

Modern courts have applied Zeran to social media, holding that social media platforms’ algorithmic content recommendations are a modern exercise of traditional editorial functions and therefore fall within Section 230 immunity.⁶⁸ For example, the D.C. Circuit Court applied an immunity shield to Google against claims that its algorithmic recommendations of scam business services caused harm. The Second Circuit held that Facebook was not liable for recommending terrorist-related conten. And the Ninth Circuit held that a website was not labile for its algorithmic recommendation which connected a user to a drug dealer who sold the user fentanyl-laced heroin which resulted in the users death.⁶⁹

This broad interpretation of Section 230 has received considerable scrutiny, and the tipping point is approaching, at which point social media companies can no longer hide behind the shield of Section 230.⁷⁰ Dissenting judges believe the immunity is interpreted too broadly and now stretches Section 230 immunity to companies’ own conduct, even though the statute clearly only focuses on third-party conduct.⁷¹ Major lawsuits based on public nuisance claims or personal injury product liability cases might be the approach that opens the floodgates for social media liability.

III. Discussion

The rise of litigation against social media companies reflects a growing shift in how courts, policymakers, and the public view the harms associated with digital platforms.⁷² Although social media companies have long benefited from the broad legal protections of Section 230 and a perception that their services are merely neutral communication tools, the mounting evidence regarding youth mental health harms challenges that narrative.⁷³ Plaintiffs increasingly argue that social media companies are not simply passive hosts of third-party content but instead actively design platforms that encourage addictive behavior.⁷⁴ As a result, litigation strategies modeled on public health lawsuits alleging public nuisance against industries such as tobacco and opioids are emerging as a potential pathway to hold social media companies accountable.⁷⁵

Part A of this section will compare the current litigation against large social media companies to the well-known litigation against Big Tobacco companies in the 1990s. Part B will discuss how public nuisance claims may be plaintiffs’ most successful pathway to holding social media companies accountable for knowingly creating a product that was addictive and subsequently caused mental health issues to a whole generation of young people. Part C will discuss the liability shield that social media companies have from Section 230, and how targeting the platform itself for being created to be addictive, rather than the content on the platform, could be a way for plaintiffs to avoid Section 230 immunity. Part D will discuss the litigation involving Plaintiff K.G.M. and how this case will shape the future of liability for social media companies.

A. Parallels Between Social Media and Tobacco Litigation

The legal theories emerging in lawsuits against social media companies closely resemble those used in litigation against the tobacco industry during the late twentieth century.⁷⁶ In both contexts, plaintiffs allege that corporations knowingly designed products that were harmful and addictive while publicly minimizing or denying those risks.⁷⁷ For decades, tobacco companies maintained that smoking was a matter of personal responsibility despite internal documents demonstrating that they were aware of nicotine’s addictive properties and the serious health risks associated with cigarette use.⁷⁸ Similarly, plaintiffs in current social media litigation argue that technology companies intentionally designed platform features that encourage compulsive use.⁷⁹ Features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and algorithmic recommendations are not incidental aspects of social media platforms but rather core elements of their design.⁸⁰ These features are intended to maximize user engagement and increase the time users spend on the platform.⁸¹ Internal documents referenced during the K.G.M. litigation, such as references to platform products as “slot machines” or statements emphasizing the importance of attracting users at increasingly younger ages, strengthen plaintiffs’ claims that these companies were aware of the potentially harmful effects of their platforms on young users.⁸²

The comparison to tobacco litigation is significant because those cases fundamentally reshaped public health regulation and corporate accountability. Once internal documents revealed that tobacco companies had knowingly misled the public, courts and policymakers became more willing to impose liability and regulatory restrictions. Social media litigation may follow a similar trajectory now that plaintiff K.G.M. was able to demonstrate that companies designed their products to be addictive, which has contributed to widespread mental health harms among children and adolescents.

B. Public Nuisance as a Pathway to Social Media Platform Accountability

Public nuisance claims may offer plaintiffs a viable legal frameworks for addressing the alleged harms caused by social media platforms because the current wave of litigation relies on a theory similar to past public nuisance litigation cases involving Big Tobacco and Opioids. School districts, state attorneys general, and individual plaintiffs argue that social media companies have contributed to a youth mental health crisis by designing platforms that promote addictive behavior and expose young users to harmful content. These harms, they argue, extend far beyond individual users and instead affect public health systems, educational institutions, and communities. If courts accept this framing, social media addiction could be treated as a public health issue comparable to other crises that have previously been addressed through public nuisance litigation.

C. Reframing Claims to Avoid Section 230 Immunity

Despite the growing number of lawsuits against social media companies, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act remains the most significant barrier to liability.⁸³ Since its enactment in 1996, Section 230 has been interpreted broadly by courts to protect online platforms from liability arising from user-generated content.⁸⁴ Courts have consistently held that platforms cannot be treated as the publishers or speakers of information created by third parties, effectively shielding companies from many traditional tort claims.⁸⁵

In recent years, courts have extended this immunity beyond the mere hosting of third-party content to include algorithmic recommendations that promote such content.⁸⁶ By characterizing recommendation algorithms as modern forms of editorial judgment, courts have allowed platforms to invoke Section 230 immunity even when their systems actively amplify harmful material.⁸⁷ As a result, many lawsuits seeking to hold social media companies responsible for harms caused by user-generated content have been dismissed at the early stages of litigation.⁸⁸

To overcome this obstacle, plaintiffs should focus on the design of social media platforms rather than the content posted by users. Instead of arguing that companies should be liable for harmful posts or videos, plaintiffs could claim that the platforms themselves are defectively designed to encourage compulsive use and maximize engagement. This strategy attempts to shift the focus away from third-party speech and toward the companies’ own conduct in designing and operating their platforms.

D. The Potential Impact of Emerging Social Media Lawsuits

The litigation involving K.G.M. serves as a critical turning point in the broader debate over social media regulation and corporate accountability. As one of the first cases to proceed to trial against major social media companies, the case will influence how courts evaluate similar claims in the future. The jury’s verdict in favor of the plaintiff could encourage additional lawsuits and increase pressure on social media companies to modify platform features that allegedly contribute to addictive use.

Discovery in this case, and future cases, has revealed and will continue to uncover additional internal documents detailing how companies design their platforms and what they knew about the potential harms associated with prolonged use. As seen in the tobacco litigation, such evidence can significantly influence both judicial decisions and public opinion. Ultimately, the growing wave of lawsuits against social media companies reflects a broader societal shift in opinion about the role that digital platforms play in shaping the mental health and well-being of young users. Whether through judicial decisions, legislative reform, or industry self-regulation, the outcome of these cases will likely have lasting implications for how social media companies design their platforms and how the law addresses the complex relationship between technology and public health.

IV. Conclusion

As concerns about youth mental health continue to grow, social media companies are increasingly facing legal challenges over the design and impact of their platforms. By drawing comparisons to earlier litigation against the tobacco and opioid industries, plaintiffs seek to frame social media addiction as a public health issue rather than simply a matter of individual responsibility. Public nuisance claims offer one possible path for addressing the widespread harms associated with excessive social media use.

The litigation against major social media companies may ultimately shape the future of technology regulation and corporate accountability. These cases signal a growing willingness to question whether the legal protections that helped build the modern internet should continue to shield platforms from responsibility for the broader societal impacts of their design choices.

Cover Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash

Kennedy Aikey

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