Child safety lawsuits & cases
Matters involving platforms or AI products exposing children to predators, explicit content, or illegal data collection (COPPA), and companion-AI harms to minors.
7 tracked cases
- Ruling 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.
- FiledFiled 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.
- FiledFiled 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.
- SettledFiled 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.
- OngoingFiled 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.
- SettledSettled 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.
- SettledSettled 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.
Other harm types
Informational summaries compiled from public sources cited on each case page. Not legal advice. Verify current status with primary sources.