Social Media Giants on Trial in California as Courts Revisit Tech Immunity
This Tech Litigation Roundup gathers and briefly analyzes notable lawsuits and court decisions across a variety of tech-and-law issues.
Each roundup in 2026 will dive deep into a major development with expert analysis from TJLP legal fellow, Maddy Batt. This month’s focus is the upcoming social media trials in California.
Here is an excerpt:
Jury selection began on January 27 for the first “bellwether” trial of a blockbuster proceeding, involving thousands of cases going back to 2021. The suits allege that social media platforms’ negligent design causes depression, anxiety, and other mental health harms for young people. The trial marks the first time that social media companies will have to defend themselves before a jury against claims that they harmed children.
In the same week, a major hearing in a separate but related high-profile multi-district litigation suggested a federal judge may allow lawsuits filed by school districts alleging injuries from social media addiction to proceed to trial later this year.
Continue reading January’s Roundup on Tech Policy Press.
Roundup of other tech litigation developments:
- Grok NCII Fallout: The backlash against xAI’s chatbot, Grok, for generating sexualized images of real women and posting them online includes a lawsuit by Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children. Regulators around the world have also promised investigation and potential legal action.
- Character AI: Character.AI agreed to settle lawsuits over the chatbot app’s harm to minors. The settlement included Garcia v. Character Technologies, the first-ever lawsuit to allege that a chatbot caused a user’s suicide (TJLP is co-counsel on the Garcia case). The Kentucky Attorney General also sued the chatbot company last month, accusing it of “preying on children.”
- AI in hiring: A proposed class action targets AI company Eightfold for allegedly circumventing the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other consumer protection laws by scraping data on job seekers to score their “suitability” for a position. The complaint argues that compiling masses of potentially unreliable information to rate applicants is precisely the conduct that the FCRA is designed to regulate, and Eightfold has violated the law by not meeting FCRA obligations.
- More antitrust allegations for Google adtech: Several publishers, including those behindthe Atlantic, Rolling Stone, the Verge, and Billboard, filed antitrust lawsuits arguing that Google’s adtech monopoly deprived them of earnings. The lawsuits seek to capitalize on an early 2025 ruling that Google violated antitrust law via its adtech business.
- SCOTUS to weigh in on Cisco human rights case: The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case against tech company Cisco for allegedly assisting the Chinese government’s surveillance and persecution of a religious minority in violation of international law. The Ninth Circuit had permitted the lawsuit to move forward. The Supreme Court’s decision will have significant implications for US tech companies that profit by providing digital infrastructure used in connection with alleged international human rights abuses.
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