Meta has started removing ads placed by attorneys seeking clients with claims related to social media addiction. It deactivated dozens of ads from law firms like Morgan & Morgan and Sokolove Law that had been running on Facebook and Instagram, and in some cases on other Meta properties. But that doesn’t mean law firms are out of luck
The Difference Between Paid and Organic Content
Meta, as a private business, is allowed to restrict paid advertising on its platforms under its terms of service. It’s pretty obvious why Meta wouldn’t want lawyers using its platforms to find potential plaintiffs with social media addiction claims against Meta. However, Meta's approach to organic posts on the issue is currently a bit more nuanced.
- Paid content: Paid social content is advertising on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. An advantage of paid social content is that it’s shown to people who might be interested in the content and who fit certain demographic and targeting criteria. Meta has instituted a blanket ban on paid advertising recruiting plaintiffs.
- Organic content: Organic social media content is unpaid. It’s content that businesses and individuals share for free on social media profiles. It can be posts, videos, or stories that get a message across. The poster doesn’t pay any money to do it, and it is typically significantly more difficult to reach a wide audience. The social media platforms’ algorithms determine who gets to see it — usually based on a proprietary mix of data on the user demographics and what they’re likely to engage with.
Meta can remove both organic and paid content that violates its terms of service, but enforcing a blanket ban on organic posts is more difficult. It is not yet clear whether Meta will remove or downgrade all posts related to social media addiction lawsuits.
Organic Might Be Enough Because So Many People Are Searching for Social Media Lawyers
Meta has the right to disallow posts seeking plaintiffs in social media addiction cases. “We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful,” said a Meta spokesperson. Meta’s terms of service say that the company can restrict content “if doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate misuse of our services or adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Meta.”
Shutting down paid posts may not make much of an impact in the end. With court rulings and some countries (cough, cough, Australia) enforcing social media bans for kids under age 16, social media addiction has definitely been in the spotlight lately. Because people are already searching for information — and considering hiring lawyers — many law firms may not need to pay Meta to find plaintiffs.
People who are out there searching for more information on the topic, often by typing search terms into Google or other search engines, will find it. Many law firms have information up on their social media profiles, ready for people who are looking for it.
There Are Alternatives
Social media isn’t the only place people look for information. One thing law firms can do to find plaintiffs, of course, is join the conversations where they’re naturally occurring. If parents are talking about social media addiction in a Reddit forum or a parenting group, for example, lawyers can join the conversation to help educate. Or law firms can add content to their own websites, which potential plaintiffs can find organically. Law firms can also pay search engines like Google to feature their content at the top of search results pages (this is called “search engine marketing.”)
A Long Road Ahead
On March 25, Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark California case, K.G.M. v. Meta et al. The jury awarded a total of $6 million in damages to a young woman who became addicted to social media platforms as a kid, including $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages (Meta must pay $4.2 million, and YouTube must pay $1.8 million).
In K.G.M.’s case, the jury found that social media sites or apps can cause personal injury because of the way they were designed. They were created to be like little casinos you can carry in your pocket. Using tricks to hijack your dopamine loops just like casino slot machines, they hook you with features like the infinite scroll and constant notifications. The uncertainty of “what might be there” keeps you scrolling and scrolling until you get the next little hit of dopamine.
The jury found that this intentional design led to K.G.M.’s mental health distress. She suffered from debilitating body dysmorphia, depression, suicidal ideation, and addiction to social media that affected her entire life.
It’s interesting to note that this approach — lawyers arguing that companies created addictive products that harmed young users — comes from the legal playbook used against Big Tobacco. Is social media the cigarette of this century?
K.G.M.’s Case Is Big News
The California trial was a bellwether case in a larger wave of litigation in Los Angeles County Superior Court and beyond, involving roughly 2,000 plaintiffs, including families, school districts, and state attorneys general, against Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and Snap. The outcome in favor of K.G.M. opens the door for other favorable verdicts for social media users against social media companies, and lawyers throughout the United States are now seeking more plaintiffs with similar claims.
They’re just not looking for them through paid social ads. Because Meta has told them they can’t.
