Case tracker
AI & Big Tech Harm Case Tracker
A sourced, human-reviewed record of lawsuits and regulatory actions over harm caused by AI systems, social media platforms, and Big Tech — chatbot failures, addictive design, child safety, biometric privacy, algorithmic denials, and more. Each case links to attorneys who handle that kind of matter.
44 cases listed · last reviewed . Every entry links to its sources — verify current status before relying on any case.
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44 cases
- Child safetyRuling issuedVerdict Mar 2026 ($375M)
State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
Meta/Instagram · United States (New Mexico)
New Mexico AG Raul Torrez sued Meta in 2023 after an undercover operation using a decoy profile of a 13-year-old girl drew solicitations from adults, alleging Meta violated the state Unfair Practices Act and misled the public about exploitation and mental-health risks to teens. In March 2026 a Santa Fe jury found Meta liable for misleading consumers and endangering children — the first state to prevail at trial against a major tech company over harm to youth — with a $375 million civil-penalty award.
- Social media addictionOngoingFirst bellwether trial Jan 2026
Social Media Cases (JCCP 5255)
Meta/Instagram, Snap/Snapchat, TikTok/ByteDance, Google/YouTube · United States (California)
California's state-court coordinated proceeding (the state analog to the federal MDL) consolidates roughly 800 individual and school-district cases alleging that social media platforms were designed to addict young users and harm their mental health. In late 2025 the court denied the platforms' motions for summary judgment, clearing the way for jury trials on product-design liability. The first state bellwether trial, KGM v. Meta & YouTube, began jury selection on January 27, 2026.
- Big Tech antitrustRuling issuedRuling Nov 18, 2025
FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (antitrust)
Meta/Instagram/WhatsApp · United States (federal)
The FTC sued Meta in December 2020 alleging it illegally maintained a monopoly in personal social networking by acquiring Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014). After a six-week bench trial, in November 2025 the court ruled for Meta, finding the FTC failed to prove Meta currently holds monopoly power given competition from TikTok and YouTube; the FTC filed a notice of appeal in January 2026.
- Copyright & training dataRuling issuedUK ruling Nov 4, 2025
Getty Images v. Stability AI Ltd.
Stability AI "Stable Diffusion" image generator · United Kingdom (and United States)
Getty Images sued Stability AI alleging its images were scraped to train Stable Diffusion, asserting copyright, database-right, trademark and passing-off claims. In November 2025 the English High Court largely rejected the copyright claims, holding the model contains no reproductions of the works, but found limited trademark infringement where outputs reproduced the Getty watermark. A parallel U.S. case is ongoing.
- Child safetyFiledFiled Aug 14, 2025
State of Louisiana v. Roblox Corporation
Roblox · United States (Louisiana)
Louisiana AG Liz Murrill sued Roblox, becoming the first state AG to sue the platform over child safety, alleging it recklessly designed a platform with no real age verification, exposing children to adult predators and sexually explicit content. The complaint cites specific exploitative 'experiences' and real-world arrests of predators active on the platform, asserting unfair and deceptive trade-practice violations.
- Autonomous & assisted drivingRuling issuedVerdict Aug 1, 2025 (~$243M)
Benavides Leon v. Tesla, Inc.
Tesla Autopilot (Model S) · United States (Florida)
Arising from a 2019 Key Largo crash in which a Tesla on Autopilot ran a T-intersection and struck a parked car, killing pedestrian Naibel Benavides Leon and injuring Dillon Angulo, a Miami jury found Tesla partly liable and awarded about $243 million (including $200 million in punitive damages). It was the first U.S. verdict holding Tesla liable in a wrongful-death action tied to Autopilot; a judge upheld the verdict in February 2026 and Tesla has appealed.
- AI defamationDismissedSummary judgment May 19, 2025
Walters v. OpenAI, LLC
OpenAI ChatGPT · United States (Georgia)
Radio host Mark Walters sued OpenAI after ChatGPT generated a false summary of a real lawsuit stating that Walters had embezzled funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. The court granted OpenAI summary judgment, finding no defamatory meaning to a reasonable reader, no actual malice, and no proven damages. It is regarded as one of the first defamation rulings on LLM output.
- Child safetyFiledFiled Apr 21, 2025
State of Florida v. Snap, Inc.
Snap/Snapchat · United States (Florida)
Florida AG James Uthmeier sued Snap, alleging Snapchat violated Florida's 2024 social media law (HB 3) restricting accounts for minors under 14 and failed to protect minors from explicit content and online predators. The suit also alleges addictive design features (infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications) and seeks civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.
- Big Tech antitrustRuling issuedLiability ruling Apr 17, 2025
United States v. Google LLC (ad-tech antitrust)
Google/Alphabet · United States (federal)
The DOJ and several states sued Google in January 2023 for monopolizing key digital-advertising technologies (the 'ad-tech stack') used by publishers. Following a 2024 trial, in April 2025 the court found Google liable for unlawfully monopolizing the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges and for unlawfully tying those products together, with the case proceeding to a remedies phase.
- Platform liability & Section 230Ruling issuedPermanent injunction Mar 31, 2025
NetChoice, LLC v. Griffin (Arkansas Social Media Safety Act)
NetChoice members (Meta, Google, Snap, TikTok, etc.) · United States (Arkansas)
Tech-industry trade association NetChoice challenged Arkansas' Social Media Safety Act, which required age verification and parental consent for minors to open social media accounts. The court issued a preliminary injunction in 2023 and, in March 2025, a permanent injunction holding the Act unconstitutional under the First Amendment for failing strict scrutiny — NetChoice's first permanent win against state social-media laws.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledSettlement approved Mar 20, 2025
In re Clearview AI Biometric Privacy Litigation
Clearview AI facial-recognition database · United States (Illinois)
A consolidated nationwide BIPA class action over Clearview AI’s faceprint scraping settled on a novel basis: rather than cash, the class received a roughly 23% equity stake in Clearview, valued at approximately $51.75 million. A federal judge approved the settlement in March 2025.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledSettled 2025 ($200,000)
Reid v. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office
Clearview AI facial recognition (Jefferson Parish SO) · United States (Louisiana)
Randall Reid, a Georgia resident who had never been to Louisiana, was jailed for nearly a week in 2022 after a Clearview AI facial-recognition match led to theft warrants; the arrest affidavit did not disclose the facial-recognition basis. He sued for civil-rights violations; the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office agreed to a $200,000 settlement, reported finalized in 2025.
- Child safetySettledFiled Oct 22, 2024
Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc.
Character.AI companion chatbot (and Google/Alphabet) · United States (Florida)
Megan Garcia sued after her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III died by suicide following extended interactions with a Character.AI companion chatbot, alleging product liability, negligence, and wrongful death. A May 2025 ruling allowed most claims to proceed and declined to treat the chatbot's outputs as First Amendment-protected speech, treating the product as a 'product' for liability purposes. The case was reported settled in principle in January 2026 alongside related cases.
- Social media addictionOngoingFiled Oct 8, 2024
State AG Coalition v. TikTok (2024 addictive-design suits)
TikTok/ByteDance · United States (13 states and the District of Columbia)
A coalition of 13 states and the District of Columbia, led by California and New York, filed separate lawsuits alleging TikTok deceived the public about the app's safety and deliberately designed addictive features (autoplay, push notifications, beauty filters) that harm children's mental health, in violation of state consumer-protection laws. The suits cite internal communications including a staffer describing a 'slot machine' effect on young users.
- Platform liability & Section 230Ruling issuedPreliminary injunction Sep 2024
NetChoice, LLC v. Reyes (Utah social media regulation)
NetChoice members (Meta, Google, Snap, TikTok, etc.) · United States (Utah)
NetChoice sued to block Utah's social media law requiring age verification and parental consent for minors. In September 2024 the court granted a preliminary injunction, holding the law likely violated the First Amendment by restricting both minors' and adults' access to protected speech — one of a series of NetChoice injunction wins against state social-media laws.
- Big Tech antitrustRuling issuedLiability ruling Aug 5, 2024
United States v. Google LLC (search antitrust)
Google/Alphabet · United States (federal)
The DOJ and a coalition of states sued Google for illegally monopolizing general search and search advertising through exclusive default-placement agreements. In August 2024 the court ruled that Google is a monopolist that unlawfully maintained its dominance. In subsequent remedies proceedings the court declined to order divestiture of Chrome but imposed limits on exclusive contracts and data-sharing requirements.
- Child safetyOngoingFiled Aug 2, 2024
United States v. TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd. (COPPA)
TikTok/ByteDance · United States (federal)
The DOJ and FTC sued TikTok and ByteDance alleging that since 2019 they knowingly permitted children to create regular accounts, collected and retained their personal data, and failed to honor parental deletion requests, in violation of COPPA and a prior 2019 FTC consent order. The complaint seeks civil penalties of up to $51,744 per violation per day and permanent injunctive relief.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledSettled Jun 28, 2024
Williams v. City of Detroit
DataWorks Plus facial-recognition technology (Detroit PD) · United States (Michigan)
Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested in January 2020 after Detroit police facial recognition falsely matched him to shoplifting footage — the first publicly reported wrongful arrest from a false face-recognition match in the U.S. In June 2024 the parties reached a settlement that, alongside monetary terms, imposed some of the nation’s strongest police restrictions on facial-recognition use.
- Chatbot misinformationRuling issuedRuling Feb 14, 2024
Moffatt v. Air Canada
Air Canada customer-service chatbot · Canada (British Columbia)
Air Canada's website chatbot incorrectly told passenger Jake Moffatt he could apply for a bereavement discount retroactively after booking. The Tribunal rejected Air Canada's argument that the chatbot was a separate legal entity, holding the airline responsible for information provided by the bot and awarding Moffatt roughly CAD $650 in damages plus interest and fees.
- Copyright & training dataOngoingFiled Dec 27, 2023
The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corp. & OpenAI
OpenAI ChatGPT / Microsoft Copilot · United States (New York)
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft alleging unauthorized copying of millions of its articles to train GPT models, seeking damages and destruction of infringing datasets. In a 2025 ruling the court allowed core copyright claims to proceed past a motion to dismiss; the case is consolidated with related publisher suits and remains pending.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionRegulatory actionSettlement Dec 19, 2023
FTC v. Rite Aid Corporation
Rite Aid in-store facial-recognition 'AI watchlist' system · United States (federal)
The FTC alleged Rite Aid deployed facial recognition in hundreds of stores to flag suspected shoplifters without reasonable safeguards, generating thousands of false positives that led consumers to be wrongly surveilled, searched, ejected, or reported to police, with disproportionate false-positive rates in plurality-Black, Latino, and Asian communities. The 2023 settlement banned Rite Aid from using facial recognition for five years and required deletion of collected data and models.
- Big Tech antitrustRuling issuedJury verdict Dec 11, 2023; affirmed 2025
Epic Games, Inc. v. Google LLC
Google/Alphabet (Google Play) · United States (federal)
Epic Games sued Google in 2020 after Fortnite was removed from the Play Store for bypassing Google Play Billing. In December 2023 a federal jury found Google liable on all counts, concluding it held illegal monopolies in Android app distribution and in-app billing services. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the verdict and injunction in 2025.
- AI benefit & claim denialsOngoingFiled Nov 14, 2023
Estate of Lokken v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
UnitedHealth / NaviHealth "nH Predict" AI algorithm · United States (Minnesota)
The estates of deceased Medicare Advantage enrollees allege UnitedHealth used the nH Predict AI tool to deny medically necessary post-acute care, overriding clinicians’ judgment, while allegedly knowing the tool had a roughly 90% reversal rate on appeal. A federal magistrate ordered broad discovery into UnitedHealth’s AI claims processes in 2025 and the case is proceeding.
- Teen mental healthOngoingFiled Oct 24, 2023
State AG Coalition v. Meta Platforms (youth mental health)
Meta/Instagram · United States (42 states/territories; 33 in the federal suit)
A bipartisan coalition of 42 state attorneys general sued Meta in federal and state courts, with 33 states joining a federal complaint in the Northern District of California. The suit alleges Meta knowingly designed addictive features on Instagram and Facebook that harm young users and collected data from children under 13 without parental consent in violation of state consumer-protection laws and COPPA.
- Copyright & training dataOngoingFiled Sep 20, 2023
Authors Guild v. OpenAI, Inc.
OpenAI GPT models / ChatGPT · United States (New York)
The Authors Guild and 17 authors including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, and Jodi Picoult filed a class action alleging their books were copied from pirate repositories to train GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 without permission. The suit claims this infringes copyright and harms authors’ livelihoods; the case is proceeding in the Southern District of New York.
- Employment & hiring AISettledConsent decree Sep 8, 2023
EEOC v. iTutorGroup, Inc.
iTutorGroup automated recruiting/applicant-screening software · United States (New York)
The EEOC alleged iTutorGroup's recruiting software was programmed to automatically reject female applicants over 55 and male applicants over 60, violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. A consent decree required iTutorGroup to pay $365,000 to more than 200 affected applicants; it is widely cited as the EEOC's first AI-related hiring discrimination settlement.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionDismissedFiled Aug 3, 2023
Woodruff v. City of Detroit
DataWorks Plus facial-recognition technology (Detroit PD) · United States (Michigan)
Porcha Woodruff, then eight months pregnant, was wrongfully arrested in February 2023 for robbery and carjacking after Detroit police facial recognition matched her to an eight-year-old mugshot; charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. She sued the city; a federal judge later dismissed the suit, finding her complaint did not adequately show the officer lacked probable cause.
- AI benefit & claim denialsOngoingFiled Jul 24, 2023; class advanced Mar 2025
Kisting-Leung v. Cigna Corporation
Cigna "PxDx" automated claims-review algorithm · United States (California)
Following a ProPublica investigation, plaintiffs filed a class action alleging Cigna's PxDx algorithm enabled mass denial of claims, with reviewing doctors allegedly spending an average of about 1.2 seconds per case, contrary to California law requiring thorough, fair review. In March 2025 the court allowed the class action over the AI-based algorithm to proceed.
- Teen mental healthOngoingJoined Jun 7, 2023
Spokane Public Schools social media youth-harm suit
Meta/Instagram, Snap/Snapchat, TikTok/ByteDance, Google/YouTube · United States (Washington)
The Spokane Public Schools board voted in June 2023 to join the wave of school-district lawsuits (following Seattle) against the operators of TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. The complaint alleges the companies intentionally market to youth and affirmatively recommend harmful content, contributing to rising depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and bullying among students.
- Platform liability & Section 230Ruling issuedDecided May 18, 2023
Gonzalez v. Google LLC and Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh
Google/YouTube, Twitter, Meta/Facebook · United States (federal)
Families of victims killed in ISIS attacks sued social media platforms under the Anti-Terrorism Act, alleging the platforms aided and abetted terrorism by hosting and algorithmically recommending ISIS content. In May 2023 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Twitter v. Taamneh that providing a generally available, algorithm-driven service does not amount to aiding and abetting terrorism, and consequently declined to reach the Section 230 question presented in Gonzalez v. Google.
- Employment & hiring AIOngoingFiled Feb 21, 2023; collective certified May 2025
Mobley v. Workday, Inc.
Workday AI-based applicant recommendation/screening system · United States (California)
Derek Mobley and other plaintiffs allege Workday's AI applicant-screening tools discriminate based on age, race, and disability under a disparate-impact theory. In May 2025 the court granted preliminary collective certification under the ADEA for applicants 40 and older, allowing a nationwide collective action to proceed; the case remains pending.
- Copyright & training dataOngoingFiled Jan 13, 2023; trial set Sep 2026
Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd.
Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, Runway (image generators) · United States (California)
Artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz brought a class action alleging AI image generators were trained on their copyrighted works without consent. In an August 2024 ruling the court dismissed some claims but allowed direct copyright infringement, inducement, and trademark claims to proceed; trial has been set for September 2026.
- Teen mental healthOngoingFiled Jan 6, 2023
Seattle Public Schools v. Meta Platforms, et al.
Meta/Instagram, Snap/Snapchat, TikTok/ByteDance, Google/YouTube · United States (Washington)
Seattle Public Schools became the first U.S. school district to sue the operators of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube, alleging the companies' platforms contributed to a youth mental-health crisis by recommending harmful content such as pro-eating-disorder material. The complaint frames the claim around the companies' own design conduct to avoid Section 230 immunity, and was later folded into the broader social-media litigation.
- Social media addictionOngoingMDL formed Oct 6, 2022
In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 3047)
Meta/Instagram, Snap/Snapchat, TikTok/ByteDance, Google/YouTube · United States (federal)
Consolidated federal multidistrict litigation gathering thousands of personal-injury claims, hundreds of school-district suits, and state attorney general actions alleging that social media platforms were designed to maximize adolescent screen time and foster addiction, causing emotional and physical harms including death. By early 2026 it included more than 10,000 individual cases and nearly 800 school-district lawsuits. Snap and TikTok reached settlements in January 2026 ahead of the first bellwether trial.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledConsent order May 11, 2022
ACLU v. Clearview AI, Inc.
Clearview AI facial-recognition database · United States (Illinois)
The ACLU sued Clearview AI under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) over its scraping of billions of faceprints from the internet without consent. A 2022 consent order permanently barred Clearview from selling its faceprint database to most private entities nationwide and from selling to any Illinois entity, including police, for five years.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledSettlement Oct 2021 ($92M)
In re TikTok, Inc. Consumer Privacy Litigation
TikTok/ByteDance (and predecessor Musical.ly) · United States (Illinois BIPA / nationwide class)
A consolidated class action alleged TikTok and predecessor Musical.ly wrongfully collected users' biometric data (facial scans) and shared private data with third parties in violation of Illinois' BIPA, the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, and other laws. A federal court in Chicago preliminarily approved a $92 million settlement in 2021, one of the largest consumer biometric-privacy settlements.
- Biometric privacy & facial recognitionSettledSettlement approved Feb 26, 2021 ($650M)
In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Facebook (Meta) 'Tag Suggestions' facial recognition · United States (Illinois BIPA class)
A class of Illinois Facebook users alleged that Facebook's 'Tag Suggestions' feature scanned facial geometry without the written consent required by BIPA. The court approved a $650 million settlement — then the largest all-cash privacy settlement — with about 1.6 million claimants receiving at least $345 each.
- Autonomous & assisted drivingSettledCharged 2020; plea 2023
State of Arizona v. Rafaela Vasquez
Uber Advanced Technologies Group self-driving system (Volvo XC90) · United States (Arizona)
In March 2018, pedestrian Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed by an Uber autonomous test vehicle in Tempe — the first known pedestrian death involving a self-driving car. Safety driver Rafaela Vasquez, found by the NTSB to have been distracted, was charged with negligent homicide in 2020 and in 2023 pleaded guilty to endangerment, receiving three years of supervised probation. Uber was not criminally charged.
- Data privacy & misuseRegulatory actionFine 2018; settled Oct 2019
UK ICO v. Facebook (Cambridge Analytica fine)
Meta/Facebook · United Kingdom
The UK ICO fined Facebook £500,000 (the maximum under the pre-GDPR Data Protection Act 1998) for failing to safeguard users’ personal information and for lack of transparency in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. After initially appealing, Facebook agreed to pay the fine in an October 2019 settlement without admitting liability.
- Child safetySettledSettled Sep 4, 2019 ($170M)
Google and YouTube COPPA settlement (FTC and New York AG)
Google/YouTube · United States (federal and New York)
Google and YouTube agreed to pay a record $170 million ($136 million to the FTC, $34 million to New York) to settle allegations that YouTube illegally collected persistent identifiers from children viewing child-directed channels without parental consent, in violation of COPPA, and used that data for targeted advertising. The settlement required a system to flag child-directed content.
- Data privacy & misuseRegulatory actionAction 2019
FTC v. Cambridge Analytica, LLC
Cambridge Analytica (data harvested from Facebook) · United States (federal)
The FTC filed an administrative complaint against Cambridge Analytica and settled with its former CEO and an app developer over the deceptive harvesting of personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users via a personality-quiz app, which was used for voter profiling. The action was part of the FTC’s broader response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- Consumer & investor deceptionSettledSettled Jul 24, 2019 ($100M)
SEC v. Facebook, Inc. (investor-disclosure settlement)
Meta/Facebook · United States (federal)
Facebook agreed to pay $100 million to settle SEC charges that it misled investors regarding the risk of misuse of user data in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, by presenting the misuse of data as merely a hypothetical risk when the company knew a third party had actually misused user data.
- Data privacy & misuseSettledSettled Jul 24, 2019 ($5B)
FTC v. Facebook, Inc. ($5 billion privacy settlement)
Meta/Facebook · United States (federal)
The FTC imposed a record $5 billion penalty on Facebook to settle charges that it violated a 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information — a matter brought into focus by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The settlement imposed sweeping new privacy restrictions, independent third-party assessments, and 20 years of compliance monitoring. It was the largest privacy penalty ever assessed by the U.S. government at the time.
- Child safetySettledSettled Feb 27, 2019
United States v. Musical.ly (TikTok) — 2019 COPPA settlement
TikTok/Musical.ly (ByteDance) · United States (federal)
The operators of Musical.ly (now TikTok) agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle FTC allegations that they illegally collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent in violation of COPPA, despite knowing many users were under 13 and receiving thousands of parental complaints. It was the largest civil penalty in a children’s privacy case at the time.
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This tracker is an informational summary of public legal matters compiled from the sources cited on each case page. It is not legal advice and is not a complete record of any case. Verify current status with primary sources before relying on it.