Jury Selection Continues, Debrief on Snap & TikTok Settlements

This week in The Dispatch, we cover the social media addiction trials and dissect the Snap and TikTok settlements

The Tech Oversight Project

04 Feb 2026 — 5 min read

Welcome back to The Dispatch from The Tech Oversight Project, your weekly updates on all things tech accountability. Follow us on Twitter at @Tech_Oversight and @techoversight.bsky.social on Bluesky.

🧾 WE COME BEARING RECEIPTS: Yesterday, The Tech Oversight Project launched a new microsite to spotlight evidence from these lawsuits. The documents on the site show a clear pattern: Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok deliberately designed their platforms to keep kids hooked, tracked, and exploited. Emails and instant messages among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and more reveal that kids’ addiction was core to their business model.

We will continue to update our microsite through the trial with new evidence and exhibits. Bookmark it.

🏛️ THE TRUTH FINDS A WAY: After years of waiting for justice, jury selection is underway in Los Angeles for the state social media addiction trials – a slight delay due to Meta's lead counsel not withstanding (get well soon!). Big Tech executives like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram co-founder Adam Mosseri will be called to the stand to answer for intentionally designing products that were dangerous to children and teens, hiding research from the public, and profiting while millions were exposed to dangers online and offline.

For those getting up to speed, this trial is a moment of reckoning and could make history. Why? For the first time ever, social media companies are being forced to defend themselves in product liability cases – outside the guarded walls of Section 230. The plaintiffs argue that design features, not content, are responsible for the negative mental health outcomes that are bubbling to the surface of society. This time, half-hearted apologies won't cut it.

For the first time, Big Tech is compelled in a court of law to answer hard questions, produce documents, and finally own up to its dangerous product and the impact it has on minors.

“These are the tobacco trials of our generation,” said Sarah Gardner, CEO of child online safety nonprofit Heat Initiative. “For parents whose children have been exploited, groomed, or died because of big tech platforms, the next six weeks are the first step toward accountability after years of being ignored by these companies.”

This trial delay is no doubt frustrating to the parents and advocates who are eagerly awaiting the trial to begin in earnest.

But rest assured: Zuckerberg, Meta, and the other CEOs and companies will still have their day in court. These tech executives will be forced to answer to the evidence that their social media platforms knowingly harm kids—even as lives are lost.

🔄 SPIN CYCLE: SNAP AND TIKTOK SETTLEMENT DEBRIEF: As one of the most consequential social media trials of our generation set to begin in Los Angeles, TikTok and Snap chose to settle with plaintiff K.G.M. in the first of product liability cases against Big Tech's biggest players. Here's what you should know:

From the outset, the first bellwether case was primarily aimed at the reckless and dangerous product designs that Google and Meta have pushed on children and teens across the country, designed to hook kids and profit from compulsive social media habits.
While we should all take note that Snap and TikTok settled to avoid this first round of scrutiny, they, too, will have their day in court. This is the first in thousands of cases with Snap and TikTok as defendants.
These settlements should come as no surprise because the damning evidence that came to light last week was just the tip of the iceberg.

For the next six weeks, the focus will remain on Google and Meta's wrongdoings, but TikTok and Meta cannot hide from the truth. They will likely appear before Judge Kuhl in the not-too-distant future.

🗞️ TOP-ED: New York Post: I’m suing social-media platforms like Snapchat — so someone else’s child doesn’t die like mine did

Julianna Arnold, survivor parent and co-founder of Parents Rise, details how a fateful and preventable interaction on Snapchat led to her daughter Coco's overdose.

You can follow every expert recommendation and still watch these platforms exploit your child’s developing brain, undermine your authority and push dangerous content straight into your home.

It was like there was a drug dealer right in my living room and I didn’t even know it. These companies designed it this way.

Arnold is one of thousands of parents and hundreds of school districts and Attorneys General suing Big Tech companies like Google, Meta, Snap, and TikTok for dangerous product designs.