2026 is the year of social media’s legal reckoning.

This case is just the tip of the legal iceberg. .
The first of many trials is set to begin this month in California, when Meta, TikTok, and YouTube face claims that tech addiction harmed a teenager’s mental health. Over the next year, top social media executives are expected to take the witness stand to defend their companies from an avalanche of claims about their failure to protect kids. It kicks off one of two sets of so-called bellwether trials, where judges will hear a selection of cases that represent similar claims, whose outcomes will likely inform settlement amounts for the remaining cases.