As many parents have known for years, social media can be misused to abuse and devastate children and youth. Until very recently, government entities and private attorneys had limited latitude to hold social media platforms accountable for harm caused to children, teens, and others. This is due to Section 230, a federal law that grants these companies broad immunity from legal liability for hosting third-party content. In other words, Section 230 protects social media companies from legal consequences for what users post on the platforms.
However, there have been recent successes by state attorneys general and private citizens suing social media companies for misleading consumers about their policies and practices, as well as causing harm to teens and children. In March of 2026, the New Mexico Department of Justice won a landmark verdict against Meta Platforms (which owns Facebook). There, a jury found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangering children. In a California case, a jury found Meta and Google negligent for designing addictive social media platforms that target children. Thousands of social media addiction lawsuits are being filed against major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and Discord. These lawsuits allege that the companies intentionally designed their platforms to be addictive to children and teens, without warning of the potential mental and physical damage that social media addiction can cause.
In addition, with the rapid development and abuse of Artificial Intelligence, or “AI,” courts seem to be moving toward distinguishing between hosting third-party content—the act that is immunized under Section 230—and generating, or contributing materially to the creation of content on platforms—presumably, like social media companies’ creation of AI tools that are used to falsely depict people as nude, show people doing or saying things they did not do or say, fabricate false criminal histories or news stories, and manufacture defamatory quotes.
AI is a complex and swiftly burgeoning technology. The accessibility and use of AI has had record-breaking growth since December of 2022, when there was a series of developments in the use of “chatbots,” or computer programs that simulate and process written and oral human conversations. That development, combined with Large Language Models, which collects nearly unfathomable amounts of data from a multitude of sources—including Wikipedia, public forums, and programming-related sites, has resulted in a technology revolution worldwide.
The revolutionary development of AI is touted as providing phenomenal efficiencies in all sectors of life, while also creating black boxes of unknowns. These include introducing the potential for unfair and erroneous decision-making by non-human actors, and creating opportunities for disturbing uses by bad actors who distort reality and perception to make what is fake seem real. Even AI tech companies acknowledge that it presents many unknowns and dangers, all while charging ahead to profit from a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with very few guardrails.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, acknowledged at a World Economic Forum that AI has very deep flaws, but people are finding ways to use it to increase productivity. He said that AI is “sometimes right, sometimes creative, sometimes totally wrong.” When asked by Fareed Zakaria, “at what level can you trust AI?” and “whether it’s getting so complicated that we just have to trust the black box,” he answered that how we trust it will be based on AI systems’ ability to explain in natural language the steps it took to get from A to B, and we as humans can decide whether we trust those steps.
Some governmental entities are trying to catch up to determine how to ensure that artificial intelligence is used responsibly and fairly, yet provide the benefits for which it is promoted, including efficiency and productivity. Although we know AI technology is being incorporated into tools used by both private and governmental entities, the extent to which it is being used, and how, is largely unknown.
We do know that one clear abuse of AI is in creating “deepfakes.” These are synthetic images, videos, or audio replicas generated using artificial intelligence to deceive people into believing an individual did or said something that never actually occurred. In addition to making people believe that someone did or said something they did not, deepfakes also give people who really have said or done something deniability—to claim that reality was a deepfake. In general, deepfakes are insidious because they make people question reality, or believe something is real or true that is completely fake.
A very troubling aspect of the rapid advancement of AI is the intersection of AI and social media platforms. For example, bad actors have used AI to create deepfakes of people falsely depicting them as nude or doing or saying things they did not do or say, which they then distribute through social media platforms. Those abuses are traumatizing to the victims and can have emotional and physical impacts, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, suicide, and other types of harm affecting children and youth. They can also negatively impact people’s reputations, employment, and professions.
The Law Offices of Erika E. Anderson are considering cases for abuses of social media and AI that are outside of Section 230 immunity. We know that pursuing these companies for harm they cause to children, teens, and others is still not easy. However, Erika has over 25 years of experience in successfully litigating difficult cases. As the Chief of Staff for the former New Mexico House Majority Leader, attorney Alisa Lauer was instrumental in the drafting and the passage of the first legislation in New Mexico to address use of deepfakes in campaigns and has drafted other legislation to provide transparency in government uses of AI. She was active in a Multi-State AI Task Force made up of legislators, legislative staff, and experts in AI and technology policy from across the country, and has given presentations on the use of AI and policymaking to address it.
The Law Offices of Erika E. Anderson will seek to apply principles of product liability, defamation law, and other laws to obtain justice from social media and AI companies, and to make those companies prioritize consumer safety in their economic analysis and product design in order to protect children, teens, and others from harm that the companies should foresee or intentionally cause.
With deep knowledge of litigation and experience leading the way on policy development to put boundaries on the use of AI, as well as proven success in obtaining damages for our clients in complex cases, we at the Law Offices of Erika E. Anderson understand the technical, scientific, legal, and human issues that arise when confronting cases involving social media addiction and abuse through AI.
Our firm has been at the forefront of addressing the harm caused by the misuse of AI and social media. If you or your child have been the victim of misuse of AI, such as false nude depictions, or if your child has suffered harm because of social media addiction, such as suicide or suicide attempts, we want to talk to you about potential representation. Please complete this easy online form for a free consultation about how we may be able to pursue justice for you or your child.