Your questions answered

You may be able to, if you or your child used Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, or Facebook as a minor and experienced anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, body image issues, self-harm, or other harm that you believe is connected to social media use. The registration form assesses your eligibility. Compensation is possible but never guaranteed.

There is no upfront cost to register or to take part in the screening. No claim has been filed yet. If a claim goes ahead, the legal costs would be handled through a damages-based agreement, a conditional fee (“no win, no fee”) agreement or third-party litigation funding, and the exact terms, including any share of compensation and any expenses, would be set out in the client care agreement with the instructed solicitor. You would see it before you sign anything.

Group litigation can take several years from issue to resolution, and nobody can say in advance how long a particular claim will take. You are kept updated throughout. The registration and screening process takes a few weeks. After that, the legal team handles proceedings on your behalf.

Probably not. In a Group Litigation Order, lead cases are usually selected to be tried and the other claims are managed alongside them, so most group members are not asked to attend. A court can, however, ask for evidence from individual claimants, so we cannot promise that you will never be asked. Your participation is mainly through the registration and screening process.

Yes. The claim is about past harm. Whether your child continues to use the platform does not by itself affect eligibility. However, if you are concerned about ongoing harm, the GDPR tools on this site can help you manage their data.

In English negligence law a claimant generally has to show that the harm would not have happened but for the defendant’s breach. Where several causes contribute to a single injury, the courts have in some cases accepted that a material contribution to the harm can be enough (see Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw and Bailey v Ministry of Defence), but whether that approach would apply to social media is untested. Other factors such as family circumstances, school issues or pre-existing conditions do not automatically prevent a claim, but they can affect it. Each case is assessed individually by a solicitor.

We process your information under UK GDPR with the legal basis of legitimate interest in pursuing litigation (Article 6(1)(f)) and explicit consent for special category health data (Article 9(2)(a)). Your data is shared only with the instructed solicitor and, if applicable, the litigation funder. Read the full privacy policy for details.

The registration and screening process captures the information we need. You do not need to provide evidence to register. However, medical records, GP letters, therapy notes, school reports, and screenshots of harmful content all strengthen individual cases. The screening process will ask about documentation you may have.

You can tell us about every platform that affected you or your child during registration. Many people used several. Whether a claim can be brought against each platform is assessed individually.

Our current focus is people who were resident in the UK. Whether a claim can be brought if you lived elsewhere depends on where the courts will hear it, and the registration form will tell you whether we can help. The companies operate in Europe through entities such as Meta Platforms Ireland, Google Ireland, TikTok Technology Limited (Dublin), and Snap Group Limited (UK).

A Group Litigation Order (GLO) is an order a court can make under Part 19 (Section III) of the Civil Procedure Rules to manage claims that raise common or related issues of fact or law. The claims are entered on a group register, and a judgment on the common issues binds everyone on the register at that time unless the court orders otherwise. People opt in by joining the register, which is different from a US class action, where a class is usually represented without each member opting in. Whether a GLO would be made for social media claims is a decision for the court.

In March 2026, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent in the design or operation of Instagram and YouTube and awarded $6 million in total to a single claimant ($3 million compensatory and $3 million punitive), putting 70% of the responsibility on Meta and 30% on YouTube. Both companies have filed notices of appeal. Also in March 2026, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties in a case brought by the State, and in August 2026 the judge ordered a further $567 million, which Meta says it will appeal. Snap and TikTok settled the Los Angeles case before trial. These are decisions in US courts. They do not guarantee any particular outcome in UK or European proceedings.

That depends on the written agreement you would sign with the instructed solicitor, which sets out what, if anything, you would owe if a claim did not succeed. It would be explained to you before you sign anything. Registering your interest and the screening carry no cost.