Facebook, TikTok Named in Social Media Addiction Lawsuit Brought by Native American Tribe Over Harm to Youth

Meta, Bytedance, Google and the owners of other major internet platforms are the target of a social media addiction lawsuit from the White Mountain Apache Tribe, who say the sites have caused serious damage to the tribe’s youth.

The complaint (PDF) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on January 7, and names the makers of Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, Google and YouTube as defendants. It is the latest community to file a claim against major social media outlets for designing their platforms to be addictive to children.

There are currently hundreds of similar social media addiction lawsuits filed by communities, states, school districts and individuals nationwide. All of the complaints 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.

The lawsuits claim that these tactics by social media platforms have resulted in destructive behavior, suicide, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other long-term psychological damage for a generation of teens in America.

The lawsuit filed by the White Mountain Apache Tribe, whose territory is located in Arizona, call the social media addiction problem the latest trauma inflicted upon the indigenous peoples of the nation, due to the spike in youth suicides linked to the platforms.

“Social media products have been a significant contributor to the current mental health crisis facing young Indigenous peoples worldwide,” the lawsuit states. “The effects of social media addiction have been felt significantly among the youth of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, whose chronically underfunded health and welfare programs have been pushed to their breaking points by this new crisis.”

The tribe indicates it brought the lawsuit following a number of whistleblowers who have warned the public that social media companies are intentionally designing their products to be addictive, despite the mental health crisis they are causing.

Those concerns have been mirrored by even the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, who warned that there is a mental health crisis among the nation’s youth caused by social media. He has called for social media sites to carry a surgeon general’s warning, like those required on packets of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The tribe notes that such problems have a profound effect on it, due to its relatively small population of 17,500 members. Of those, more than half are under 25 years old, and more than a third of the tribe is under 18. They report seeing a “troubling” increase in youth anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts linked to their use of social media. This has required the tribe to divert its limited resources to address this problem.

The tribe presents claims of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), public nuisance, fraud, negligence, gross negligence, failure to warn, unjust enrichment, and seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

January 2025 Social Media Addiction Lawsuits Update

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 in 2023, 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 and community lawsuits.

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, with the first trial likely to begin in 2026.

Although the outcome of these early trial dates will not have any binding impact on other lawsuits brought by individuals, communities or 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.