03/27/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/27/2026 13:55
Carson City, NV - Today, Attorney General Aaron D. Ford released the following remarks after juries in courts in California and New Mexico ruled that social media companies were aware of the harms their products had caused to the nation's youth. On March 24, a New Mexico jury ruled social media giant Meta must pay a $375 million monetary penalty for misleading the public about harms Meta knew to be lurking on its platforms. Today, a jury in a separate California trial awarded $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages to an individual who sued Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok alleging that their harmful design had inflicted mental health harms on her when she was a teen.
"The recent decisions in California and New Mexico are the first steps to getting justice for children victimized by social media companies that deliberately designed addictive products and ignored the dangers those products posed to children," said Attorney General Ford. "The juries in these cases reached the only logical conclusion when presented with the facts, and we are confident that, when our litigation is brought before Nevada juries, they will come to the same conclusion. We will do whatever is needed to protect Nevada's youth."
Like the cases recently decided in favor of the plaintiffs, Attorney General Ford's lawsuits currently pending against Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Kik accuse the companies of using harmful design features; failing to implement common-sense safety measures for children; and misleading the public regarding child users' safety. However, several of Nevada's lawsuits also include products liability claims and economic damages that are unique to the Nevada Attorney General's jurisdiction to pursue consumer protection claims on behalf of Nevadans.
The status of the OAG's lawsuits against social media companies on behalf of Nevadans are as follows (note that trial dates are subject to change):
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