in fines, court awards and settlements imposed on or agreed by Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snap and X since 2019
Could you or your child claim compensation for social media harm?
Fines, court awards and settlements worth more than £20 billion have been imposed on or agreed by social media companies since 2019, and thousands of similar claims are pending behind the first US cases. Read the evidence, see how a claim works, then check in two minutes whether you or your child may be able to claim.
Los Angeles County Superior Court, one claimant. £2.3m compensatory and £2.3m punitive damages. The jury put 70% of the responsibility on Meta (US$4.2M in total) and 30% on YouTube (US$1.8M in total).
A New Mexico judge found Meta a public nuisance and ordered it to pay this amount into a youth harm abatement fund, in addition to the US$375M jury penalties, bringing the total ordered in New Mexico to £714m (US$942M). Meta has said it will appeal.
These are US court outcomes and public reports, checked on . Meta and YouTube have filed notices of appeal against the K.G.M. verdict. US results do not predict the outcome of any UK claim. See the full dated record on the case page and the latest on the updates page.
Who has been ordered or agreed to pay so far
The £20.9bn added up by company. Tap a bar to see the cases behind it.
£9.2bnSettlement with a coalition of US state attorneys general over addictive design and child safety on Instagram and Facebook. .
£3.8bnPenalty for violating its 2012 privacy order after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. .
£1.1bnSettlement over unauthorised use of facial recognition data. .
£1.0bnFine over transfers of EU users’ data to the US. .
£758mSeparate settlement with Texas over child safety on Facebook and Instagram. .
£714mNew Mexico court judgment: $375M in jury civil penalties (24 March) plus a $567M youth harm abatement fund ordered by the judge (6 August). The $375M is part of the $942M total, not an addition to it. .
Most of this was ordered or agreed to be paid to governments, regulators and US states, not to families. Some of it is under appeal and some is payable over several years. How the figure is worked out.
People are bringing similar claims in other countries. Here is what has been awarded and what is being asked for. Nothing here tells you what a UK claim could be worth.
USA · Damages awarded
About £4.5 million
($6 million) awarded to one person
In March 2026 a Los Angeles jury found Instagram (Meta) and YouTube (Google) negligent in the design or operation of their platforms, and that this contributed to harm to one young woman. The jury put 70% of the responsibility on Meta and 30% on YouTube, so the $6 million is shared between the two companies:
About £3.2 million ($4.2 million) from Meta
About £1.4 million ($1.8 million) from YouTube
Half ($3 million) was compensation and half ($3 million) was a punishment award (punitive damages), assessed separately against each company. Both companies have filed notices of appeal.
Netherlands · Compensation sought
£360 to £1,570
(€425 to €1,850) sought per user from Snapchat
A Dutch consumer foundation (SMC) brought its claim against Snap in the Amsterdam District Court in early September 2026. SMC puts the damages at between £360 and £1,570 (€425 to €1,850) per user, depending on age and how much the app was used.
A second foundation (SOMI) started a separate claim against Snapchat in June 2026, seeking up to £850 (€1,000) per minor and £640 (€750) per adult.
Denmark · Compensation sought
About £2,850
(DKK 25,000) sought per child from Meta
On 1 April 2026 SOMI also brought a case against Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, in Copenhagen City Court. It is seeking about £2,850 (DKK 25,000) per minor.
This is not just a UK problem. It is a worldwide movement.
Parents, consumer groups and public bodies in the US, the Netherlands and Denmark are taking social media companies to court. They want these platforms held to account. Pressure from families is the way these companies are made to improve, so that children's lives get better and the anxiety and mental health harm now being argued in courts around the world is reduced.
* About these figures. The US award (Meta and YouTube) is under appeal. The amounts for the Netherlands (Snapchat) and Denmark (Meta) are what the claimant foundations are asking for or estimating. Those European cases have been filed but have not yet been decided by a court. We are not saying a UK claim would be worth the same. UK courts and UK law are different, and cases may go either way. Compensation is possible but never guaranteed. Sterling amounts are rounded approximate conversions (US$1 = £0.76, €1 = £0.85, mid-market rates of 9 October 2026). Facts checked 11 October 2026.
Why this matters
Courts and regulators are now looking at the design itself.
Illustration: an endless feed, stacked notifications, screen time and late-night use. The European Commission’s preliminary findings on TikTok (6 February 2026) and on Instagram and Facebook (10 July 2026) name infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications among the design features at issue (Source: European Commission). These are preliminary findings and do not prejudge the outcome.
01
Design under scrutiny
Regulators and plaintiffs point to infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications.
Checking whether you may be eligible takes about two minutes and costs nothing.
From the court record
What the documents show.
Court filing and trial evidence ·
Bring them in as tweens
Internal Meta documents quoted in the plaintiffs’ federal brief say: “Tweens and young teens are Facebook’s best opportunity to win future generations of people” (Exhibit 315), and “We have definitively established tweens as the highest retention age group in the United States” (Exhibit 316). One employee wrote: “targetting 11 year olds feels like tobacco companies a couple decades ago (and today). Like we’re seriously saying ‘we have to hook them young’ here” (Exhibit 299). A 2018 document read to the jury in KGM v Meta & Google, as reported by NPR, stated: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”
An internal Meta document (Exhibit 366) describes a consultation “with 18 experts” and says “A large majority, including individuals in the AR field, recommended prohibiting these filters, citing known impacts to body image and mental health”. Meta’s temporary ban was lifted in May 2020, when Mark Zuckerberg directed teams to “allow people to create and share face-altering effects on Instagram” but not promote them in the Effects Gallery (Exhibit 372). The Massachusetts Attorney General’s complaint quotes other emails citing “nearly 20” and “21” experts. These are allegations in court filings, which Meta disputes. At the K.G.M. trial, Zuckerberg said a ban felt “overbearing” and “paternalistic”. Meta stopped creating or recommending the filters itself but left them available.
An internal Meta chat between two UX researchers, quoted in the plaintiffs’ brief filed in the federal proceedings on 21 November 2025 (Exhibit 74), has one researcher writing “IG is a drug”. The same message continues: “We’re basically pushers”. It goes on: “We are causing Reward Deficit Disorder bc people are binging on IG so much they can’t feel reward anymore.” These are allegations in a filing, not findings of a court.
NPR, reporting on the Kentucky Attorney General complaint after its redactions failed, wrote: “TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos.” The complaint itself states that “in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted”. That conclusion is the State’s, not TikTok’s. These are allegations in a complaint, which TikTok disputes.
The BBC reported that Mark Zuckerberg told the Los Angeles jury: “You’re mischaracterising what I’m saying. I’m not surprised that people internally were studying this.” It reported that in a 2015 email he told executives his goals for the year included seeing “time spent increase by 12%”, and that he said “at an earlier point in the company” he gave executives goals to increase time spent but “insisted that was no longer how the company operated”. Asked about addiction, the BBC quoted him: “I don’t know what to say to that. I think that may be true but I don’t know if that applies here.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s own written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee states: “Mental health is a complex issue, and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes.” At the hearing, CBS News reported that he told families in the room: “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal said to the Head of Instagram: “Instagram is addictive.” Adam Mosseri answered: “Senator, respectfully, I don’t believe the research suggests that our products are addictive. Research actually shows that on 11 of 12 difficult issues that teens face, teens that are struggling said Instagram helps for their harms.” Asked by Senator Klobuchar whether someone in the company said losing teen users was an “existential threat”, he answered: “Senator, I assume that is true.”
On 17 October 2024 the Massachusetts Superior Court wrote that Meta’s motion to dismiss “is denied” and that the complaint “is primarily based on Meta’s own conduct, not third-party content.” On 10 April 2026 the state’s highest court wrote: “at least at this preliminary stage of the litigation, Meta has not shown it is entitled to the protection provided by § 230(c)(1).” On 20 February 2026 a Kentucky court refused TikTok’s motion to dismiss, writing that Section 230 “does not mandate dismissal at this stage”. These are rulings that accept the complaint’s allegations as true. They are not findings that the allegations are proved.
The First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe issued its Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Judgment, Order, and Decree in the State’s case against Meta (Case No. D-101-CV-2023-02838), 68 pages. The New Mexico Department of Justice reported that the court ordered Meta to pay $567 million to address the youth mental health crisis and described the order as overhauling protections for children on Facebook and Instagram. Combined with the $375 million in civil penalties a jury imposed in March 2026, the Department puts the total against Meta at $942 million. Meta disagrees with the ruling and has said it will appeal. This is a court’s decision after a separate trial before the judge alone.
Quoted from trial evidence, court filings, court rulings, Senate testimony and an attorney general’s complaint, as reported by the sources linked. Some of this material is allegation rather than a finding, and the companies dispute or put context around it. See the full evidence.
The dated record
What has happened in 2026, in order.
Snap and TikTok settle before the KGM trial
Snap settled on 20 January. TikTok settled late on 26 January, the day before jury selection was due to begin in the first US social media addiction case. Terms were not disclosed.
In K.G.M. v Meta & YouTube the jury awarded £4.5m (US$6M) to one claimant: US$3M compensatory damages plus US$3M punitive damages. The jury put 70% of the responsibility on Meta (US$4.2M in total) and 30% on YouTube, owned by Google (US$1.8M in total). Meta and YouTube have both filed notices of appeal.
EU preliminarily finds Instagram and Facebook’s design addictive
The European Commission preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act. The findings are preliminary and do not decide the outcome. Meta spokesperson Ben Walters told Al Jazeera: “We disagree with these preliminary findings”.
After a separate trial before the judge alone, the judge found Meta’s platforms a public nuisance, taking the total ordered in New Mexico to £714m (US$942M). Meta has said it will appeal.
Meta settled with a coalition of state attorneys general over child safety: at least £9.2bn (US$12.1bn), rising to up to £13.0bn (US$17.1bn) if other major companies reach similar settlements. The New York Attorney General’s release says the deal was subject to court approval.
TikTok agreed to pay Alabama at least £76m (US$100M), rising to up to £227m (US$300M), and to add usage limits and age checks for teenagers. Reports differ on what triggers the higher figure.
Held liable in two US trials in March 2026, with $942M ordered in New Mexico ($375M in jury civil penalties and a $567M abatement fund). EU preliminary finding on addictive design, 10 July 2026.
YouTube was found negligent in the K.G.M. trial in March 2026 and assigned 30% of the responsibility: US$1.8M in total (US$0.9M compensatory and US$0.9M punitive). YouTube has filed a notice of appeal.
No. The US results show that claims can succeed in court, but they do not decide any UK claim. Every claim is assessed on its own facts, and compensation is possible but never guaranteed.
What if other things also affected my child?
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Other factors do not automatically rule a claim out. The question is whether social media made a material contribution to the harm, and that is assessed case by case.
We added up 26 cases against social media companies since 2019 in the US, Europe, the UK and Nigeria, and turned every amount into pounds. It could rise to £24.9bn if every extra payment is made.
Important: most of this money was ordered or agreed to be paid to governments, regulators and US states, not to individual families. Some of it is being appealed and some is payable over several years. It shows these companies are being held to account. It does not promise you a payout.
£9.2bnMetaUS state attorneys general ·US$12.1bn, up to US$17.1bn
£3.8bnFacebook (Meta)US Federal Trade Commission ·US$5bn
£1.1bnMetaTexas Attorney General ·US$1.4bn
£1.0bnMetaIrish Data Protection Commission ·€1.2bn
£758mMetaTexas Attorney General ·US$1bn
£714mMetaNew Mexico courts ·US$942m
See all 26 entries, by type
Child safety and addictive design £10.7bn
£9.2bnMeta: Settlement with a coalition of US state attorneys general over addictive design and child safety on Instagram and Facebook. US state attorneys general, (US$12.1bn, up to US$17.1bn). At least $12.1bn over ten years, up to $17.1bn if other companies reach similar settlements with states. The New York Attorney General’s release says it was subject to court approval. Bloomberg Law reports no admission of liability. Meta and some press reports put its wider package of state settlements, including Texas, at up to $18bn. Source: New York Attorney General, Bloomberg Law
£758mMeta: Separate settlement with Texas over child safety on Facebook and Instagram. Texas Attorney General, (US$1bn). The Texas Attorney General describes it as over $1bn; Bloomberg Law reports up to $1bn. No exact figure has been published. It is separate from the multistate settlement. Source: Texas Attorney General
£714mMeta: New Mexico court judgment: $375M in jury civil penalties (24 March) plus a $567M youth harm abatement fund ordered by the judge (6 August). The $375M is part of the $942M total, not an addition to it. New Mexico courts, (US$942m). Meta has said it will appeal. In August 2026 it asked the court to accept a $1.8bn bond to stay enforcement while it appeals, which the State did not oppose. Source: New Mexico Department of Justice, Source NM (jury verdict), Source NM (abatement order)
£76mTikTok: Settlement with Alabama over teen safety claims. Alabama Attorney General, (US$100m, up to US$300m). The Alabama Attorney General says at least $100M, rising to up to $300M. Reports differ on what triggers the higher figure. Source: Alabama Attorney General
£20mMeta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube: Settlements with a Kentucky school district in the first federal social media addiction test case. US school district, (US$27m). Meta $9M, Snap $8M, ByteDance $8M, Alphabet $2.01M. Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (Reuters)
£4.5mMeta and YouTube (Google): K.G.M. v Meta & YouTube, Los Angeles jury verdict for one claimant ($3M compensatory plus $3M punitive). Los Angeles County Superior Court, (US$6m). Responsibility: Meta 70%, YouTube 30%. Meta $4.2M in total ($2.1M compensatory plus $2.1M punitive); YouTube $1.8M ($0.9M plus $0.9M). Meta and YouTube have both filed notices of appeal. Source: Courthouse News, ABC7 Los Angeles
£292mTikTok: Fine over the processing of children’s data and default settings. Irish Data Protection Commission, (€345m). Source: Irish Data Protection Commission
£227mTikTok and ByteDance: US Justice Department settlement over children’s privacy (COPPA). US Department of Justice, (US$300m, up to US$400m). Announced 21 August 2026. $300M is payable immediately. A further $100M is payable only if a court vacates an earlier consent decree. The Justice Department states the claims are allegations only. Source: US Department of Justice
£129mYouTube (Google): Penalty over children’s data collection (COPPA). US Federal Trade Commission and New York, (US$170m). Source: US Federal Trade Commission
£13mTikTok: Fine for letting under-13s use the platform without parental consent. UK Information Commissioner’s Office, . TikTok withdrew its appeals and accepted the fine in September 2026. Source: UK Information Commissioner’s Office
Privacy, data and consumer protection £8.2bn
£3.8bnFacebook (Meta): Penalty for violating its 2012 privacy order after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. US Federal Trade Commission, (US$5bn). Source: US Federal Trade Commission
£1.1bnMeta: Settlement over unauthorised use of facial recognition data. Texas Attorney General, (US$1.4bn). Source: Texas Attorney General
£549mMeta: Class action settlement over sharing Facebook user data with Cambridge Analytica. US federal court (private class action), (US$725m). Source: Bloomberg
£449mTikTok: Fine over transfers of EU users’ data to China. Irish Data Protection Commission, (€530m). TikTok has said it will appeal. Source: Irish Data Protection Commission
£331mFacebook and Instagram (Meta): Fine over the legal basis for personalised advertising. Irish Data Protection Commission, (€390m). Source: Irish Data Protection Commission
£167mMeta: Fine over data protection and consumer rights violations on Facebook and WhatsApp. Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, (US$220m). A Nigerian tribunal upheld the fine in April 2025. WhatsApp said it would appeal. Source: ABC News (AP)
£114mTwitter (now X): Penalty for using security phone numbers and emails to target advertising. US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, (US$150m). Source: US Federal Trade Commission
£676mMeta: Antitrust fine over tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook. European Commission, (€797.7m). Meta has said it will appeal. Source: European Commission
£169mMeta: Fine under the Digital Markets Act over its “consent or pay” advertising model. European Commission, (€200m). Source: European Commission
£102mX: First fine under the Digital Services Act, over blue checkmarks, ad transparency and researcher access. European Commission, (€120m). Source: European Commission
Pounds are converted from the original currency at about $1.32 and €1.18 to the pound (rounded mid-market rates of 9 October 2026). This list covers the largest cases verified so far, not every penalty. Last checked .