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1 Brian J. Panish, State Bar No. 116060
panish@psbr.law
2 Rahul Ravipudi, State Bar No. 204519
rravipudi@psbr.law
3 Jesse Creed, State Bar No. 272595
jcreed@psbr.law
4 PANISH | SHEA | BOYLE | RAVIPUDI LLP
11111 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 700
5 Los Angeles, California 90025
Tel: (310) 477-1700
6 Fax: (310) 477-1699
7 Co-Lead and Co-Liaison Counsel for Plaintiffs
8 [Additional Counsel listed on signature pages]
9
10 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
11 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT
12
13 COORDINATION PROCEEDING JUDICIAL COUNCIL COORDINATION
SPECIAL TITLE [RULE 3.400] PROCEEDING NO. 5255
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Filed in Case No. 22STCV21355
15 SOCIAL MEDIA CASES
_____________________________________ Judge: Hon. Carolyn B. Kuhl
16 THIS DOCUMENT RELATES TO: SSC-12
17 All Cases MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL
(CHRISTINA ARLINGTON SMITH, ET AL., V. TIKTOK
INJURY)
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INC., ET AL., CASE NO. 22STCV21355) JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
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1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
II. THE PARTIES ................................................................................................................... 7
3
A. PLAINTIFFS ............................................................................................................. 7
4 B. DEFENDANTS ......................................................................................................... 8
5 1. Meta ............................................................................................................... 8
2. Snap ............................................................................................................... 9
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3. ByteDance ..................................................................................................... 9
7 4. Google ......................................................................................................... 10
8 III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE ....................................................................................... 11
IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS ........................................................................................... 12
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A. GENERAL FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL
10 DEFENDANTS ....................................................................................................... 12
1. Defendants have targeted children as a core market. .................................. 12
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2. Children are uniquely susceptible to harm from Defendants’ apps. ........... 14
12 3. Defendants designed their apps to attract and addict youth. ....................... 21
13 4. Millions of kids use Defendants’ products compulsively. .......................... 28
5. Defendants’ apps have created a youth mental health crisis. ...................... 30
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6. Defendants could have avoided harming Plaintiffs..................................... 39
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7. Defendants consistently refer to and treat their apps as products. .............. 41
16 B. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO META ......................................................... 46
17 1. Background and overview of Meta’s products. .......................................... 46
a. Meta’s origins and the development of Facebook. ......................... 48
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b. Modifications of Facebook’s product features over time................ 50
19 c. Facebook’s acquisition and control of Instagram............................ 58
d. Modifications of Instagram’s product features over time. .............. 61
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2. Meta intentionally encourages youth to use its products and then leverages
21 that usage to increase revenue. .................................................................... 66
22 3. Meta intentionally designed product features to addict children and
adolescents. ................................................................................................. 76
23 a. Meta has failed to implement effective age-verification measures to
keep children off Facebook and Instagram. .................................... 76
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b. Facebook’s and Instagram’s parental controls are defective........... 84
25 c. Facebook and Instagram were intentionally designed to addict its
users. ................................................................................................ 87
26 d. To combat declining revenue drivers, Meta further revamped its
algorithms to maximize addictive efficacy, despite increased
27 awareness of palpable harm to youth .............................................. 97
28 e. Meta’s defective product features cause negative appearance
comparison and social comparison ............................................... 104
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1 f. Facebook’s and Instagram’s defective features include impediments
to discontinuing use. ...................................................................... 117
2 4. Meta has concealed from Plaintiffs, the public, and Congress the harmful
3 effects that Instagram’s and Facebook’s design have on children. ........... 119
5. Meta facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. ................... 137
4
6. Meta failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs or Consortium Plaintiffs about the
5 dangers and harms caused by Instagram and Facebook, or provide
instructions regarding safe use. ................................................................. 145
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C. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO SNAP ........................................................ 147
7 1. Background and overview of Snapchat. .................................................... 148
8 2. Snap targets children. ................................................................................ 149
a. Snap has designed its Snapchat product to grow use by children to
9 drive the company’s revenue......................................................... 149
10 b. Snap promotes Snapchat to children. ............................................ 153
3. Snapchat is designed to addict children through psychological manipulation.
11 ................................................................................................................... 157
12 a. Snap designed Snapchat to drive compulsive use through a set of
social metrics and other manipulation techniques that induce
13 compulsive use. ............................................................................. 158
(i) Snapscores ..................................................................................... 158
14 (ii) Trophies, Charms, and Stickers..................................................... 160
15 (iii) Snap Streak .................................................................................... 161
(iv) Push Notifications ......................................................................... 164
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(v) Impediments to Discontinuing Use ............................................... 164
17 b. Snap’s defective features are designed to promote compulsive and
excessive use. ................................................................................ 165
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(i) “Stories” and the “Discover” Interface ......................................... 165
19 (ii) “Spotlight’ ..................................................................................... 167
4. Snap designed Snapchat with features that harm children directly or expose
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children to harm. ....................................................................................... 167
21 a. Disappearing “Snaps” and “My Eyes Only” encourage destructive
behavior among Snap’s teen users. ............................................... 167
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b. Snapchat’s “Snap Map” feature endangers children. .................... 169
23 c. Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature endangers children. ................... 169
d. Snapchat’s Lenses and Filters features promote negative appearance
24 comparison. ................................................................................... 170
25 5. Snap has implemented ineffective and misleading parental controls, further
endangering children. ................................................................................ 173
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6. Snap facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation..................... 174
27 7. Snap failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harms its product causes
or provide instructions regarding safe use................................................. 178
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D. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO BYTEDANCE .......................................... 179
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1 1. Background and overview of TikTok. ...................................................... 182
2 2. ByteDance intentionally encourages youth to use its product and then
leverages that use to increase revenue....................................................... 183
3 3. ByteDance intentionally designed product features to addict children and
adolescents. ............................................................................................... 184
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a. TikTok’s age-verification measures are dangerously defective. ... 185
5 b. TikTok’s parental controls are dangerously defective. ................. 187
6 c. ByteDance intentionally designed TikTok’s defective features and
algorithms to maximize engagement using automatic content, time-
7 limited experiences, intermittent variable rewards, reciprocity, and
ephemeral content. ........................................................................ 188
8 d. ByteDance’s defective features inflict impossible image standards
and encourage negative appearance comparison........................... 207
9
4. ByteDance Materially Contributes to Content on TikTok. ....................... 210
10 a. ByteDance’s defective features include impediments to
discontinuing use. .......................................................................... 212
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5. ByteDance failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harms its product
12 causes or to provide instructions regarding safe use. ................................ 214
6. ByteDance facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. .......... 217
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7. Bytedance Knows That TikTok Harms Many Young Users. ................... 220
14 E. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO GOOGLE .................................................. 221
15 1. Background and overview of YouTube. ................................................... 221
2. Google intentionally encourages youth to use YouTube and then leverages
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that use to increase revenue. ...................................................................... 223
17 3. Google intentionally designed product features to addict children and
adolescents. ............................................................................................... 228
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a. Google’s age-verification measures and parental controls are
19 defective. ....................................................................................... 229
b. YouTube is defectively designed to inundate users with features that
20 use intermittent variable rewards and reciprocity. ........................ 231
21 c. Google’s algorithms are designed to maximize “watch time.” ..... 235
d. YouTube’s defective features include impediments to discontinuing
22 use.................................................................................................. 246
23 5. Google facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. ................ 247
6. Google failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harm its products
24 cause or provide instructions regarding safe use. ...................................... 252
25 V. TIMELINESS AND TOLLING OF STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS ......................... 254
VI. PLAINTIFFS’ CLAIMS................................................................................................. 255
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COUNT 1: STRICT LIABILITY – DESIGN DEFECT (Against All Defendants) ...... 256
27 COUNT 2: STRICT LIABILITY – FAILURE TO WARN (Against All Defendants). 261
28 COUNT 3: NEGLIGENCE – DESIGN (Against All Defendants)............................... 265
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1 COUNT 4: NEGLIGENCE – FAILURE TO WARN (Against All Defendants) ......... 268
COUNT 5: NEGLIGENCE (Against All Defendants) .................................................. 271
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COUNT 6: NEGLIGENT UNDERTAKING (Against All Defendants) ...................... 278
3 COUNT 7: FRAUDULENT CONCEALMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION
(Against the Meta Defendants Only) .................................................................... 280
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COUNT 8: NEGLIGENT CONCEALMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION (Against
5 the Meta Defendants Only) ................................................................................... 284
COUNT: 9 NEGLIGENCE PER SE (Against All Defendants) ................................... 286
6 COUNT 10: SEX AND AGE DISCRIMINATION (Against All Defendants) ............ 289
7 COUNT 11: WRONGFUL DEATH (Against All Defendants) ................................... 290
COUNT 12: SURVIVAL ACTION (Against All Defendants) .................................... 291
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COUNT 13: LOSS OF CONSORTIUM AND SOCIETY (Against All Defendants) ... 291
9 VII. PRAYER FOR RELIEF ................................................................................................. 292
10 VIII. DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL ...................................................................................... 297
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1 I. INTRODUCTION
2 1. American children are suffering an unprecedented mental health crisis fueled by
3 Defendants’ addictive and dangerous social media products.
4 2. In the past decade, Americans’ engagement with social media grew exponentially,
5 nowhere more dramatically than among our country’s youth. That explosion in usage is no accident.
6 It is the result of Defendants’ studied efforts to induce young people to compulsively use their
7 products—Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. Borrowing heavily from the
8 behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette
9 industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at
10 maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue. Defendants know children are in a
11 developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these
12 features. Defendants target them anyway, in pursuit of additional profit.
13 3. The defects in Defendants’ products vary by platform, but all exploit children and
14 adolescents. They include but are not limited to an algorithmically-generated, endless feed to keep
15 users scrolling in an induced “flow state;” “intermittent variable rewards” that manipulate dopamine
16 delivery to intensify use; “trophies” to reward extreme usage; metrics and graphics to exploit social
17 comparison; incessant notifications that encourage repetitive account checking by manufacturing
18 insecurity; inadequate, essentially illusory age verification protocols; and deficient tools for parents
19 that create the illusion of control.
20 4. The resulting ubiquity of Defendants’ products in the lives and palms of our kids,
21 and the ensuing harm to them, is hard to overstate. Today, over a third of 13 to 17-year-old kids
22 report using one of Defendants’ apps “almost constantly” and admit this is “too much.” Yet more
23 than half of these kids report that they would struggle to cut back on their social media use. Instead
24 of feeding coins into slot machines, kids are feeding Defendants’ products with an endless supply
25 of attention, time, and data.
26 5. Defendants’ choices have generated extraordinary corporate profits—and yielded
27 immense tragedy. Suicide rates for youth are up an alarming 57%. Emergency room visits for
28 anxiety disorders are up 117%. In the decade leading up to 2020, there was a 40% increase in high
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1 school students reporting persistent sadness and hopelessness, and a 36% increase in those who
2 attempted to take their own lives. In 2019, one in five high school girls had made a suicide plan. In
3 2021, one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide. Children and their parents and
4 guardians across the country have struggled to cope with the severe, lasting damage visited on their
5 families by anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidality, and the loss of
6 outliving one’s child.
7 6. This lawsuit follows on a growing body of scientific research, including Defendants’
8 own internal (previously concealed) studies, that draws a direct line between Defendants’ conscious,
9 intentional design choices and the youth mental health crisis gripping our nation. Instagram,
10 Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube have rewired how our kids think, feel, and behave.
11 Disconnected “Likes” have replaced the intimacy of adolescent friendships. Mindless scrolling has
12 displaced the creativity of play and sport. While presented as “social,” Defendants’ products have
13 in myriad ways promoted disconnection, disassociation, and a legion of resulting mental and
14 physical harms.
15 7. The U.S. Surgeon General recently explained that children versus Big Tech is “just
16 not a fair fight.” 1 “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who
17 have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend
18 on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time
19 you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers.”
20 8. Over the past year, a substantial number of personal injury actions have been filed in
21 California courts alleging that Defendants defectively designed their platforms—in foreseeably
22 unsafe ways and in dereliction of their basic duties of care—to induce harmful, unhealthy, and
23 compulsive use by kids. Plaintiffs in these cases are the young people whose descent into the void
24 of social media has led to serious and sometimes fatal harm, and their parents and guardians.
25
26 1
Allison Gordon & Pamela Brown, Surgeon General says 13 is ‘too early’ to join social media,
CNN (Jan. 29, 2023), https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/29/health/surgeon-general-social-
27
media/index.html. Exhibits and referenced materials are incorporated in this Master Complaint as
28 if fully stated herein.
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1 Defendants are the multibillion-dollar corporations who designed unsafe products that hopelessly
2 outmatch parents’ struggle to keep their children healthy and safe.
3 9. Plaintiffs file this Master Complaint (Personal Injury) (“Complaint”) as an
4 administrative device, to set forth the potential claims and facts that individual Plaintiffs may assert
5 in this coordination proceeding against Defendants. 2 Unless otherwise indicated, Plaintiffs make
6 allegations about themselves based on personal knowledge, and allegations about Defendants on
7 information and belief generally gained through their attorneys’ investigations.
8 ***
9 10. Over the past decade, Defendants have relentlessly pursued a strategy of growth-at-
10 all-costs, recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children’s mental and physical health
11 and well-being. 3 In a race to corner the “valuable but untapped” market of tween and teen users,
12 each Defendant designed product features to promote repetitive, uncontrollable use by kids. 4
13 11. Adolescents and children are central to the Defendants’ business models. These age
14 groups are highly connected to the Internet, more likely to have social media accounts, and more
15 likely to devote their downtime to social media usage. Additionally, youth influence the behavior
16
17
18
19 2
This Complaint does not necessarily include all claims or allegations that have been or will be
20 asserted in each action filed in, or transferred to, this Court. Individual plaintiffs may adopt the
allegations and claims in this Complaint through a separate Short Form Complaint. See Exhibit A
21 (template Master Short Form Complaint). Individual plaintiffs may supplement or add allegations,
claims, or defendants to their respective Short Form Complaints. This Complaint does not waive
22
or dismiss any claims in any individual action. Nor does any Plaintiff relinquish any right they
23 otherwise would have had, absent this Complaint, to amend (or move to amend) their Short Form
Complaints.
24
3
See, e.g., Haugen_00000934 (admission by a Software Engineer at Meta, that “It’s not a secret
25 that we’ve often resorted to aggressive tactics in the name of growth, and we’ve been pretty
unapologetic about it.”).
26
4
Georgia Wells & Jeff Horwitz, Facebook’s Effort to Attract Preteens Goes Beyond Instagram
27
Kids, Documents Show, Wall St. J. (Sept. 28, 2021), https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-
28 instagram-kids-tweens-attract-11632849667; see also Haugen_00022339.
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1 of their parents and younger siblings. As one Defendant put it, “los[ing] the teen foothold in the
2 U.S.” would mean “los[ing] the pipeline” for growth. 5
3 12. Recognizing the power of engaging young users, Defendants deliberately tweaked
4 the design and operation of their apps to exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of kids.
5 Because children’s and adolescents’ brains are not fully developed, they lack the same emotional
6 maturity, impulse control, and psychological resiliency as adults. As a result, they are uniquely
7 susceptible to addictive features in digital products and highly vulnerable to the consequent harms.
8 Knowing this, Defendants wrote code designed to manipulate dopamine release in children’s
9 developing brains and, in doing so, create compulsive use of their apps.
10 13. Defendants’ strategy paid off. Users of their products now number in the billions,
11 and the frequency and time spent by these users has grown exponentially. This has allowed
12 Defendants to harvest a vast amount of personal user data—from the school you attend, to the
13 sneakers you covet, to the places you’ve been and the people you’ve met. This, in turn, has allowed
14 Defendants to mint a fortune, by selling to others the ability to micro-target advertisements to
15 incredibly narrow slices of the public. 6
16 14. Defendants’ growth has come at the expense of its most vulnerable users: children
17 around the world, including Plaintiffs, who Defendants cultivated and exploited. Plaintiffs are not
18 merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products. They are the direct victims of the intentional
19 product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful
20 features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.
21
22
23 5
Sheera Frenkel et al., Instagram Struggles with Fears of Losing Its ‘Pipeline’: Young Users,
24 N.Y. Times (Oct. 26, 2021), available at
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/technology/instagram-teens.html.
25
6
See Snap, Inc., 2022 Annual Report (Form 10-K) at 15 (Jan. 31, 2023) (“[W]e rely heavily on
26 our ability to collect and disclose data[] and metrics to our advertisers so we can attract new
advertisers and retain existing advertisers. Any restriction or inability, whether by law, regulation,
27
policy, or other reason, to collect and disclose data and metrics which our advertisers find useful
28 would impede our ability to attract and retain advertisers.”).
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1 15. As a direct result of Defendants’ successful promotion of their defective products,
2 the rates of mental health issues among children have climbed steadily since 2010. By 2018, suicide
3 was the second leading cause of death for youth. 7
4 16. The U.S. Surgeon General recently issued an advisory “to highlight the urgent need
5 to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis.” 8 In a scathing rebuke of the assault on our
6 children, the Surgeon General recognized the dangerous designs in Defendants’ products and
7 Defendants’ abdication of responsibility for the resulting harms:
8 In these digital public spaces, which are privately owned and tend to
be run for profit, there can be tension between what’s best for the
9 technology company and what’s best for the individual user or for
society. Business models are often built around maximizing user
10 engagement as opposed to safeguarding users’ health and ensuring
that users engage with one another in safe and healthy ways . . . .
11 [T]echnology companies must step up and take responsibility for
creating a safe digital environment for children and youth. Today,
12 most companies are not transparent about the impact of their products,
which prevents parents and young people from making informed
13 decisions and researchers from identifying problems and solutions. 9
14 17. The Surgeon General’s comments have since been echoed by President Biden
15 himself. In both his 2022 and 2023 State of the Union Addresses, the President urged the nation to
16 “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our
17 children for profit.” 10 In a January 11, 2023 op-ed, President Biden amplified this point: “The risks
18
19
7
CDC, Deaths: Leading Causes for 2018, 70(4) National Vital Statistics Reports at 10 (May 17,
20 2021), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-04-508.pdf.
21 8
Press Release, U.S. Dep’t Health & Hum. Servs., U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on Youth
Mental Health Crisis Further Exposed by COVID-19 Pandemic (Dec. 7, 2021),
22
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/12/07/us-surgeon-general-issues-advisory-on-youth-
23 mental-health-crisis-further-exposed-by-covid-19-pandemic.html.
9
24 U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, Protecting Youth Mental Health (Dec. 7, 2021),
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf
25 (emphasis in original).
26 10
The White House, President Biden’s State of the Union Address (Mar. 1, 2022),
https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2022/; see also The White House, President
27
Biden’s State of the Union Address (Feb. 7, 2023), https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-
28 union-2023/.
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1 Big Tech poses for ordinary Americans are clear. Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data
2 on the things we buy, on the websites we visit, on the places we go and, most troubling of all, on
3 our children.” 11 The President observed that millions of children and adolescents struggle with
4 “violence, trauma and mental health” as a result of Defendants’ conduct and products, and again
5 stated that “[w]e must hold social-media companies accountable” for their role in this crisis. 12
6 18. These statements by President Biden and the Surgeon General are in line with a
7 substantial body of peer-reviewed scientific literature documenting the harmful impact that
8 Defendants’ products have on our children, including the various injuries suffered by Plaintiffs. This
9 body of research demonstrates that Defendants’ defectively designed products can cause the harms
10 Plaintiffs suffer: addiction, compulsive use, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, body dysmorphia,
11 self-harm, sexual exploitation, suicidal ideations, other serious diseases and injuries, and suicide
12 itself. Overall rates of these disorders have increased greatly because of widespread consumption of
13 Defendants’ products by children in this country and across the world.
14 19. Defendants knew or should have known about the risks of such addiction—which at
15 least one Defendant euphemistically calls “problematic use.” 13 They could have changed their
16 products to avoid the harm. They could have warned the public and Plaintiffs about the danger.
17 Instead, Defendants placed growth first.
18
19 11
Joe Biden, Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses, Wall St. J. (Jan. 11,
20 2023), https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy-
competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411.
21
12
Joe Biden, Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses, Wall St. J. (Jan. 11,
22 2023), https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy-
23 competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411.
13
24 See Haugen_00016373 at Haugen_00016379 (internal Meta report from March 2020
summarizing internal research on “problematic use”—when a user “experienc[es] both of the
25 following issues ‘very often’ or ‘all the time’: Lack of control or feelings of guilt over Facebook
use. Negative impact in at least one of the following areas: productivity, sleep, parenting, or
26 relationships.”);Haugen_00016373 at Haugen_00016412, Haugen_00016490 (referring to
“problematic use” as “Loss of Control Over Time Spent” or “LCOTS”); Haugen_00016373 at
27
Haugen_00016379 (recognizing that “Problematic Use” is “sometimes referred to as ‘social media
28 addiction’ externally”).
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1 20. Plaintiffs seek to recover damages from Defendants and hold them responsible for
2 personal injuries resulting from their wrongful conduct. That conduct includes: (a) designing
3 defective products that caused serious injuries to Plaintiffs; (b) failing to provide adequate warnings
4 about serious and reasonably foreseeable health risks from use of the products; (c) failing to utilize
5 reasonable care in, among other things, developing, designing, managing, operating, testing,
6 producing, labeling, marketing, advertising, promoting, controlling, selling, supplying, and
7 distributing their products; and (d) as to Meta, engaging in the deliberate concealment,
8 misrepresentation, and obstruction of public awareness of serious health risks to users of its
9 products.
10 II. THE PARTIES
11 A. PLAINTIFFS
12 21. This Complaint is filed on behalf of children who suffered personal injuries—and, in
13 cases of death, the personal representatives of their estates (“Plaintiffs”)—due to their use of
14 Defendants’ products and, where applicable, their parents, guardians, spouses, children, siblings,
15 and close family members, who suffered loss of society or consortium and other injuries as a
16 consequence of the harms to Plaintiffs (“Consortium Plaintiffs”), who file a Short Form Complaint.
17 By operation of an anticipated Court order, all allegations pled in this Complaint are deemed pled
18 in any Short Form Complaint as to the Defendants identified therein.
19 22. Plaintiffs have suffered various personal injuries because of their use of Defendants’
20 products. Plaintiffs and Consortium Plaintiffs have been harmed as a direct and proximate result of
21 Defendants’ wrongful conduct. These harms include pain, suffering, disability, impairment,
22 disfigurement, death, an increased risk of injury and other serious illnesses, loss of enjoyment of
23 life, loss of society, aggravation or activation of preexisting conditions, scarring, inconvenience,
24 incurred costs for medical care and treatment, loss of wages and wage-earning capacity, and other
25 economic and non-economic damages (specifically including any injuries set forth in a Short Form
26 Complaint). These losses are often permanent and continuing in nature.
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1 23. Plaintiffs expressly disaffirm any contract they may have made with any of the
2 Defendants, or that Defendants may claim they made with them, before reaching the age of majority,
3 as they lacked capacity to contract.
4 24. Plaintiffs also expressly disaffirm any contract they may have made with any of the
5 Defendants, or that Defendants may claim they made with them, after reaching the age of majority,
6 because Plaintiffs’ continued use of Defendants’ products was compulsive and due to addiction, not
7 an affirmation of any contract.
8 B. DEFENDANTS
9 25. The defendants identified in this section are collectively referred to as “Defendants”
10 throughout this Complaint.
11 1. Meta
12 26. Defendant Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta Platforms”) is a Delaware corporation and
13 multinational technology conglomerate. Its principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA.
14 27. Meta Platforms’ subsidiaries include, but may not be limited to, the entities identified
15 in this section, as well as a dozen others whose identity or involvement is presently unclear.
16 28. Defendant Facebook Payments, Inc. (“Facebook 1”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of
17 Meta Platforms that was incorporated in Florida on December 10, 2010. Facebook 1 manages,
18 secures, and processes payments made through Meta Platforms, among other activities. Its principal
19 place of business is in Menlo Park, CA.
20 29. Defendant Siculus, Inc. (“Siculus”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Meta Platforms
21 that was incorporated in Delaware on October 19, 2011. Siculus constructs data facilities to support
22 Meta Platforms’ products. Its principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA.
23 30. Defendant Facebook Operations, LLC (“Facebook 2”) is a wholly owned subsidiary
24 of Meta Platforms that was incorporated in Delaware on January 8, 2012. Facebook 2 is likely a
25 managing entity for Meta Platforms’ other subsidiaries. Meta Platforms is the sole member of this
26 LLC, whose principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA.
27 31. Defendant Instagram, LLC (“Instagram, LLC”) launched an app called Instagram in
28 October 2010. On or around April 7, 2012, Meta Platforms purchased Instagram, LLC for over one
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1 billion dollars and reincorporated the company in Delaware. Meta Platforms is the sole member of
2 this LLC, whose principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA.
3 32. Meta Platforms, Instagram, Siculus, Facebook 1, and Facebook 2 are referred to
4 jointly as “Meta.”
5 33. Meta owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages, develops,
6 tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes digital products available
7 through mobile- and web-based applications (“apps”), including Instagram and Facebook (together,
8 “Meta products”); Messenger; and Messenger Kids. Meta’s apps and devices are widely distributed
9 to consumers throughout the United States.
10 2. Snap
11 34. Defendant Snap Inc. (“Snap”) is a Delaware corporation. Its principal place of
12 business is in Santa Monica, CA.
13 35. Snap owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages, develops,
14 tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes the app Snapchat. Snapchat is
15 widely available to consumers throughout the United States.
16 3. ByteDance
17 36. Defendant ByteDance Ltd. is a global company incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
18 Its principal place of business is in Beijing, China. ByteDance Ltd. also maintains offices in the
19 United States, Singapore, India, and the United Kingdom, among other locations.
20 37. ByteDance Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant ByteDance Inc., a Delaware
21 corporation whose principal place of business is in Mountain View, CA.
22 38. ByteDance Ltd.’s key Chinese subsidiary is Beijing Douyin Information Service
23 Limited, f/k/a Beijing ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd. (“Beijing ByteDance”). 14 Beijing
24 ByteDance owns, operates, and holds key licenses to Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. On or
25
26 14
See Sophie Webster, ByteDance Changes Names of Subsidiaries to Douyin, Speculated to be
Mulling an IPO, Tech Times (May 8, 2022), available at
27
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/275188/20220508/bytedance-changes-names-subsidiaries-
28 douyin-speculated-mulling-ipo.htm.
00635032-3 9
MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY)
1 around April 30, 2021, the Chinese government took a 1% stake in, and received one of three seats
2 on the board of directors of, Beijing ByteDance. 15 Specifically, 1% of Beijing ByteDance is now
3 owned by ZhongWen (Beijing) Technology, which in turn is owned by China Internet Investment
4 Fund (China’s top Internet regulator and censor), China Media Group (China’s national broadcaster,
5 controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department), and the Beijing municipal
6 government’s investment arm.
7 39. ByteDance Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, Ltd., a Cayman
8 Island corporation with its principal place of business in Shanghai, China.
9 40. TikTok, Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, LLC which is, and at all
10 relevant times was, a Delaware limited liability company.
11 41. TikTok, LLC wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, Inc. f/k/a Musical.ly,
12 Inc. (“TikTok, Inc.”), a California corporation with its principal place of business in Culver City,
13 CA.
14 42. Defendants TikTok, Ltd.; TikTok, LLC; TikTok, Inc.; ByteDance Ltd.; and
15 ByteDance Inc. are referred to jointly as “ByteDance.”
16 43. ByteDance owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages,
17 develops, tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes the app TikTok.
18 TikTok is widely available to consumers throughout the United States.
19 4. Google
20 44. Google Inc. was incorporated in California in September 1998 and reincorporated in
21 Delaware in August 2003. In or around 2017, Google Inc. converted to a Delaware limited liability
22 company, Defendant Google, LLC (together with its predecessor-in-interest Google Inc.,
23 “Google”). Google’s principal place of business is in Mountain View, CA.
24
25
26 15
See Juro Osawa & Shai Oster, Beijing Tightens Grip on ByteDance by Quietly Taking Stake,
China Board Seat, The Information (Aug. 16, 2021), available at
27
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/beijing-tightens-grip-on-bytedance-by-quietly-taking-
28 stake-china-board-seat?rc=ubpjcg.
00635032-3 10
MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY)
1 45. Since 2006, Google has operated, done business as, and wholly owned as its
2 subsidiary Defendant YouTube, LLC (“YouTube, LLC”). YouTube, LLC is a Delaware limited
3 liability company with its principal place of business in San Bruno, CA. YouTube is widely
4 available to consumers throughout the United States. 16
5 46. On October 2, 2015, Google reorganized and became a wholly owned subsidiary of
6 a new holding company, Alphabet Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business
7 in Mountain View, CA.
8 47. Google, LLC and YouTube, LLC (together, “Google”) are alter egos of one another:
9 together and in concert they own, operate, control, produce, design, maintain, manage, develop, test,
10 label, market, advertise, promote, supply, and distribute the app YouTube.
11 III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE
12 48. This Court has jurisdiction over this entire action as this case is a civil action wherein
13 the matter in controversy, exclusive of interest and costs, exceeds the jurisdictional minimum of the
14 Court.
15 49. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants because they are incorporated
16 in and have their principal places of business in California, and because they have contacts with
17 California that are so continuous and systematic that they are essentially at home in this state. Meta,
18 Google, and ByteDance, Inc. maintain their principal places of business within this State. Snap and
19 TikTok Inc. maintain their headquarters in this State. All Defendants regularly conduct and solicit
20 business in California, provide products and/or services by or to persons here, and derive substantial
21 revenue from the same. All Defendants affirmatively and extensively engage with a significant
22 percentage of this State’s residents through messages, notifications, recommendations, and other
23 communications.
24
25
26
16
See, e.g., Alphabet Inc., Form 10-Q, Oct. 25, 2022, at 4 (defining Alphabet as “Alphabet Inc.
27
and its subsidiaries.”), available at
28 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204422000090/goog-20220930.htm.
00635032-3 11
MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY)
1 50. There is no federal jurisdiction in this case. All claims are brought pursuant to
2 California state law. There are no federal causes of action and Plaintiff expressly disclaim any
3 federal causes of action.
4 51. Venue is proper under the Judicial Council Coordination Proceedings (“JCCP”)
5 order, which consolidated and assigned this litigation to Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl on January 5, 2023.
6 IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
7 A. GENERAL FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL
DEFENDANTS
8 1. Defendants have targeted children as a core market.
9
52. Each Defendant has designed, engineered, marketed, and operated its products to
10 maximize the number of children who download and use them compulsively. Children are more
11 vulnerable users and have more free time on their hands than their adult counterparts. Because
12 children use Defendants’ products more, they see more ads, and as a result generate more ad revenue
13 for Defendants. Young users also generate a trove of data about their preferences, habits, and
14 behaviors. That information is Defendants’ most valuable commodity. Defendants mine and
15 commodify that data, including by selling to advertisers the ability to reach incredibly narrow
16 tranches of the population, including children. Each Defendant placed its app(s) into the stream of
17 commerce and generated revenues through the distribution of those apps at the expense of the
18 consuming public and Plaintiffs.
19 53. This exploitation of children, including each of the individual Plaintiffs in these
20 actions, has become central to Defendants’ profitability. Like the cigarette industry a generation
21 earlier, Defend
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1 Brian J. Panish, State Bar No. 116060 panish@psbr.law 2 Rahul Ravipudi, State Bar No. 204519 rravipudi@psbr.law 3 Jesse Creed, State Bar No. 272595 jcreed@psbr.law 4 PANISH | SHEA | BOYLE | RAVIPUDI LLP 11111 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 700 5 Los Angeles, California 90025 Tel: (310) 477-1700 6 Fax: (310) 477-1699 7 Co-Lead and Co-Liaison Counsel for Plaintiffs 8 [Additional Counsel listed on signature pages] 9 10 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 11 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT 12 13 COORDINATION PROCEEDING JUDICIAL COUNCIL COORDINATION SPECIAL TITLE [RULE 3.400] PROCEEDING NO. 5255 14 Filed in Case No. 22STCV21355 15 SOCIAL MEDIA CASES _____________________________________ Judge: Hon. Carolyn B. Kuhl 16 THIS DOCUMENT RELATES TO: SSC-12 17 All Cases MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL (CHRISTINA ARLINGTON SMITH, ET AL., V. TIKTOK INJURY) 18 INC., ET AL., CASE NO. 22STCV21355) JURY TRIAL DEMANDED 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 00635032-3 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 II. THE PARTIES ................................................................................................................... 7 3 A. PLAINTIFFS ............................................................................................................. 7 4 B. DEFENDANTS ......................................................................................................... 8 5 1. Meta ............................................................................................................... 8 2. Snap ............................................................................................................... 9 6 3. ByteDance ..................................................................................................... 9 7 4. Google ......................................................................................................... 10 8 III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE ....................................................................................... 11 IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS ........................................................................................... 12 9 A. GENERAL FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL 10 DEFENDANTS ....................................................................................................... 12 1. Defendants have targeted children as a core market. .................................. 12 11 2. Children are uniquely susceptible to harm from Defendants’ apps. ........... 14 12 3. Defendants designed their apps to attract and addict youth. ....................... 21 13 4. Millions of kids use Defendants’ products compulsively. .......................... 28 5. Defendants’ apps have created a youth mental health crisis. ...................... 30 14 6. Defendants could have avoided harming Plaintiffs..................................... 39 15 7. Defendants consistently refer to and treat their apps as products. .............. 41 16 B. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO META ......................................................... 46 17 1. Background and overview of Meta’s products. .......................................... 46 a. Meta’s origins and the development of Facebook. ......................... 48 18 b. Modifications of Facebook’s product features over time................ 50 19 c. Facebook’s acquisition and control of Instagram............................ 58 d. Modifications of Instagram’s product features over time. .............. 61 20 2. Meta intentionally encourages youth to use its products and then leverages 21 that usage to increase revenue. .................................................................... 66 22 3. Meta intentionally designed product features to addict children and adolescents. ................................................................................................. 76 23 a. Meta has failed to implement effective age-verification measures to keep children off Facebook and Instagram. .................................... 76 24 b. Facebook’s and Instagram’s parental controls are defective........... 84 25 c. Facebook and Instagram were intentionally designed to addict its users. ................................................................................................ 87 26 d. To combat declining revenue drivers, Meta further revamped its algorithms to maximize addictive efficacy, despite increased 27 awareness of palpable harm to youth .............................................. 97 28 e. Meta’s defective product features cause negative appearance comparison and social comparison ............................................... 104 00635032-3 i MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 f. Facebook’s and Instagram’s defective features include impediments to discontinuing use. ...................................................................... 117 2 4. Meta has concealed from Plaintiffs, the public, and Congress the harmful 3 effects that Instagram’s and Facebook’s design have on children. ........... 119 5. Meta facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. ................... 137 4 6. Meta failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs or Consortium Plaintiffs about the 5 dangers and harms caused by Instagram and Facebook, or provide instructions regarding safe use. ................................................................. 145 6 C. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO SNAP ........................................................ 147 7 1. Background and overview of Snapchat. .................................................... 148 8 2. Snap targets children. ................................................................................ 149 a. Snap has designed its Snapchat product to grow use by children to 9 drive the company’s revenue......................................................... 149 10 b. Snap promotes Snapchat to children. ............................................ 153 3. Snapchat is designed to addict children through psychological manipulation. 11 ................................................................................................................... 157 12 a. Snap designed Snapchat to drive compulsive use through a set of social metrics and other manipulation techniques that induce 13 compulsive use. ............................................................................. 158 (i) Snapscores ..................................................................................... 158 14 (ii) Trophies, Charms, and Stickers..................................................... 160 15 (iii) Snap Streak .................................................................................... 161 (iv) Push Notifications ......................................................................... 164 16 (v) Impediments to Discontinuing Use ............................................... 164 17 b. Snap’s defective features are designed to promote compulsive and excessive use. ................................................................................ 165 18 (i) “Stories” and the “Discover” Interface ......................................... 165 19 (ii) “Spotlight’ ..................................................................................... 167 4. Snap designed Snapchat with features that harm children directly or expose 20 children to harm. ....................................................................................... 167 21 a. Disappearing “Snaps” and “My Eyes Only” encourage destructive behavior among Snap’s teen users. ............................................... 167 22 b. Snapchat’s “Snap Map” feature endangers children. .................... 169 23 c. Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature endangers children. ................... 169 d. Snapchat’s Lenses and Filters features promote negative appearance 24 comparison. ................................................................................... 170 25 5. Snap has implemented ineffective and misleading parental controls, further endangering children. ................................................................................ 173 26 6. Snap facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation..................... 174 27 7. Snap failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harms its product causes or provide instructions regarding safe use................................................. 178 28 D. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO BYTEDANCE .......................................... 179 00635032-3 ii MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 1. Background and overview of TikTok. ...................................................... 182 2 2. ByteDance intentionally encourages youth to use its product and then leverages that use to increase revenue....................................................... 183 3 3. ByteDance intentionally designed product features to addict children and adolescents. ............................................................................................... 184 4 a. TikTok’s age-verification measures are dangerously defective. ... 185 5 b. TikTok’s parental controls are dangerously defective. ................. 187 6 c. ByteDance intentionally designed TikTok’s defective features and algorithms to maximize engagement using automatic content, time- 7 limited experiences, intermittent variable rewards, reciprocity, and ephemeral content. ........................................................................ 188 8 d. ByteDance’s defective features inflict impossible image standards and encourage negative appearance comparison........................... 207 9 4. ByteDance Materially Contributes to Content on TikTok. ....................... 210 10 a. ByteDance’s defective features include impediments to discontinuing use. .......................................................................... 212 11 5. ByteDance failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harms its product 12 causes or to provide instructions regarding safe use. ................................ 214 6. ByteDance facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. .......... 217 13 7. Bytedance Knows That TikTok Harms Many Young Users. ................... 220 14 E. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO GOOGLE .................................................. 221 15 1. Background and overview of YouTube. ................................................... 221 2. Google intentionally encourages youth to use YouTube and then leverages 16 that use to increase revenue. ...................................................................... 223 17 3. Google intentionally designed product features to addict children and adolescents. ............................................................................................... 228 18 a. Google’s age-verification measures and parental controls are 19 defective. ....................................................................................... 229 b. YouTube is defectively designed to inundate users with features that 20 use intermittent variable rewards and reciprocity. ........................ 231 21 c. Google’s algorithms are designed to maximize “watch time.” ..... 235 d. YouTube’s defective features include impediments to discontinuing 22 use.................................................................................................. 246 23 5. Google facilitates the spread of CSAM and child exploitation. ................ 247 6. Google failed to adequately warn Plaintiffs about the harm its products 24 cause or provide instructions regarding safe use. ...................................... 252 25 V. TIMELINESS AND TOLLING OF STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS ......................... 254 VI. PLAINTIFFS’ CLAIMS................................................................................................. 255 26 COUNT 1: STRICT LIABILITY – DESIGN DEFECT (Against All Defendants) ...... 256 27 COUNT 2: STRICT LIABILITY – FAILURE TO WARN (Against All Defendants). 261 28 COUNT 3: NEGLIGENCE – DESIGN (Against All Defendants)............................... 265 00635032-3 iii MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 COUNT 4: NEGLIGENCE – FAILURE TO WARN (Against All Defendants) ......... 268 COUNT 5: NEGLIGENCE (Against All Defendants) .................................................. 271 2 COUNT 6: NEGLIGENT UNDERTAKING (Against All Defendants) ...................... 278 3 COUNT 7: FRAUDULENT CONCEALMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION (Against the Meta Defendants Only) .................................................................... 280 4 COUNT 8: NEGLIGENT CONCEALMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION (Against 5 the Meta Defendants Only) ................................................................................... 284 COUNT: 9 NEGLIGENCE PER SE (Against All Defendants) ................................... 286 6 COUNT 10: SEX AND AGE DISCRIMINATION (Against All Defendants) ............ 289 7 COUNT 11: WRONGFUL DEATH (Against All Defendants) ................................... 290 COUNT 12: SURVIVAL ACTION (Against All Defendants) .................................... 291 8 COUNT 13: LOSS OF CONSORTIUM AND SOCIETY (Against All Defendants) ... 291 9 VII. PRAYER FOR RELIEF ................................................................................................. 292 10 VIII. DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL ...................................................................................... 297 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 00635032-3 iv MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 I. INTRODUCTION 2 1. American children are suffering an unprecedented mental health crisis fueled by 3 Defendants’ addictive and dangerous social media products. 4 2. In the past decade, Americans’ engagement with social media grew exponentially, 5 nowhere more dramatically than among our country’s youth. That explosion in usage is no accident. 6 It is the result of Defendants’ studied efforts to induce young people to compulsively use their 7 products—Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. Borrowing heavily from the 8 behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette 9 industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at 10 maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue. Defendants know children are in a 11 developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these 12 features. Defendants target them anyway, in pursuit of additional profit. 13 3. The defects in Defendants’ products vary by platform, but all exploit children and 14 adolescents. They include but are not limited to an algorithmically-generated, endless feed to keep 15 users scrolling in an induced “flow state;” “intermittent variable rewards” that manipulate dopamine 16 delivery to intensify use; “trophies” to reward extreme usage; metrics and graphics to exploit social 17 comparison; incessant notifications that encourage repetitive account checking by manufacturing 18 insecurity; inadequate, essentially illusory age verification protocols; and deficient tools for parents 19 that create the illusion of control. 20 4. The resulting ubiquity of Defendants’ products in the lives and palms of our kids, 21 and the ensuing harm to them, is hard to overstate. Today, over a third of 13 to 17-year-old kids 22 report using one of Defendants’ apps “almost constantly” and admit this is “too much.” Yet more 23 than half of these kids report that they would struggle to cut back on their social media use. Instead 24 of feeding coins into slot machines, kids are feeding Defendants’ products with an endless supply 25 of attention, time, and data. 26 5. Defendants’ choices have generated extraordinary corporate profits—and yielded 27 immense tragedy. Suicide rates for youth are up an alarming 57%. Emergency room visits for 28 anxiety disorders are up 117%. In the decade leading up to 2020, there was a 40% increase in high 00635032-3 1 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 school students reporting persistent sadness and hopelessness, and a 36% increase in those who 2 attempted to take their own lives. In 2019, one in five high school girls had made a suicide plan. In 3 2021, one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide. Children and their parents and 4 guardians across the country have struggled to cope with the severe, lasting damage visited on their 5 families by anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidality, and the loss of 6 outliving one’s child. 7 6. This lawsuit follows on a growing body of scientific research, including Defendants’ 8 own internal (previously concealed) studies, that draws a direct line between Defendants’ conscious, 9 intentional design choices and the youth mental health crisis gripping our nation. Instagram, 10 Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube have rewired how our kids think, feel, and behave. 11 Disconnected “Likes” have replaced the intimacy of adolescent friendships. Mindless scrolling has 12 displaced the creativity of play and sport. While presented as “social,” Defendants’ products have 13 in myriad ways promoted disconnection, disassociation, and a legion of resulting mental and 14 physical harms. 15 7. The U.S. Surgeon General recently explained that children versus Big Tech is “just 16 not a fair fight.” 1 “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who 17 have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend 18 on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time 19 you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers.” 20 8. Over the past year, a substantial number of personal injury actions have been filed in 21 California courts alleging that Defendants defectively designed their platforms—in foreseeably 22 unsafe ways and in dereliction of their basic duties of care—to induce harmful, unhealthy, and 23 compulsive use by kids. Plaintiffs in these cases are the young people whose descent into the void 24 of social media has led to serious and sometimes fatal harm, and their parents and guardians. 25 26 1 Allison Gordon & Pamela Brown, Surgeon General says 13 is ‘too early’ to join social media, CNN (Jan. 29, 2023), https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/29/health/surgeon-general-social- 27 media/index.html. Exhibits and referenced materials are incorporated in this Master Complaint as 28 if fully stated herein. 00635032-3 2 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 Defendants are the multibillion-dollar corporations who designed unsafe products that hopelessly 2 outmatch parents’ struggle to keep their children healthy and safe. 3 9. Plaintiffs file this Master Complaint (Personal Injury) (“Complaint”) as an 4 administrative device, to set forth the potential claims and facts that individual Plaintiffs may assert 5 in this coordination proceeding against Defendants. 2 Unless otherwise indicated, Plaintiffs make 6 allegations about themselves based on personal knowledge, and allegations about Defendants on 7 information and belief generally gained through their attorneys’ investigations. 8 *** 9 10. Over the past decade, Defendants have relentlessly pursued a strategy of growth-at- 10 all-costs, recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children’s mental and physical health 11 and well-being. 3 In a race to corner the “valuable but untapped” market of tween and teen users, 12 each Defendant designed product features to promote repetitive, uncontrollable use by kids. 4 13 11. Adolescents and children are central to the Defendants’ business models. These age 14 groups are highly connected to the Internet, more likely to have social media accounts, and more 15 likely to devote their downtime to social media usage. Additionally, youth influence the behavior 16 17 18 19 2 This Complaint does not necessarily include all claims or allegations that have been or will be 20 asserted in each action filed in, or transferred to, this Court. Individual plaintiffs may adopt the allegations and claims in this Complaint through a separate Short Form Complaint. See Exhibit A 21 (template Master Short Form Complaint). Individual plaintiffs may supplement or add allegations, claims, or defendants to their respective Short Form Complaints. This Complaint does not waive 22 or dismiss any claims in any individual action. Nor does any Plaintiff relinquish any right they 23 otherwise would have had, absent this Complaint, to amend (or move to amend) their Short Form Complaints. 24 3 See, e.g., Haugen_00000934 (admission by a Software Engineer at Meta, that “It’s not a secret 25 that we’ve often resorted to aggressive tactics in the name of growth, and we’ve been pretty unapologetic about it.”). 26 4 Georgia Wells & Jeff Horwitz, Facebook’s Effort to Attract Preteens Goes Beyond Instagram 27 Kids, Documents Show, Wall St. J. (Sept. 28, 2021), https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook- 28 instagram-kids-tweens-attract-11632849667; see also Haugen_00022339. 00635032-3 3 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 of their parents and younger siblings. As one Defendant put it, “los[ing] the teen foothold in the 2 U.S.” would mean “los[ing] the pipeline” for growth. 5 3 12. Recognizing the power of engaging young users, Defendants deliberately tweaked 4 the design and operation of their apps to exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of kids. 5 Because children’s and adolescents’ brains are not fully developed, they lack the same emotional 6 maturity, impulse control, and psychological resiliency as adults. As a result, they are uniquely 7 susceptible to addictive features in digital products and highly vulnerable to the consequent harms. 8 Knowing this, Defendants wrote code designed to manipulate dopamine release in children’s 9 developing brains and, in doing so, create compulsive use of their apps. 10 13. Defendants’ strategy paid off. Users of their products now number in the billions, 11 and the frequency and time spent by these users has grown exponentially. This has allowed 12 Defendants to harvest a vast amount of personal user data—from the school you attend, to the 13 sneakers you covet, to the places you’ve been and the people you’ve met. This, in turn, has allowed 14 Defendants to mint a fortune, by selling to others the ability to micro-target advertisements to 15 incredibly narrow slices of the public. 6 16 14. Defendants’ growth has come at the expense of its most vulnerable users: children 17 around the world, including Plaintiffs, who Defendants cultivated and exploited. Plaintiffs are not 18 merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products. They are the direct victims of the intentional 19 product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful 20 features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops. 21 22 23 5 Sheera Frenkel et al., Instagram Struggles with Fears of Losing Its ‘Pipeline’: Young Users, 24 N.Y. Times (Oct. 26, 2021), available at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/technology/instagram-teens.html. 25 6 See Snap, Inc., 2022 Annual Report (Form 10-K) at 15 (Jan. 31, 2023) (“[W]e rely heavily on 26 our ability to collect and disclose data[] and metrics to our advertisers so we can attract new advertisers and retain existing advertisers. Any restriction or inability, whether by law, regulation, 27 policy, or other reason, to collect and disclose data and metrics which our advertisers find useful 28 would impede our ability to attract and retain advertisers.”). 00635032-3 4 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 15. As a direct result of Defendants’ successful promotion of their defective products, 2 the rates of mental health issues among children have climbed steadily since 2010. By 2018, suicide 3 was the second leading cause of death for youth. 7 4 16. The U.S. Surgeon General recently issued an advisory “to highlight the urgent need 5 to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis.” 8 In a scathing rebuke of the assault on our 6 children, the Surgeon General recognized the dangerous designs in Defendants’ products and 7 Defendants’ abdication of responsibility for the resulting harms: 8 In these digital public spaces, which are privately owned and tend to be run for profit, there can be tension between what’s best for the 9 technology company and what’s best for the individual user or for society. Business models are often built around maximizing user 10 engagement as opposed to safeguarding users’ health and ensuring that users engage with one another in safe and healthy ways . . . . 11 [T]echnology companies must step up and take responsibility for creating a safe digital environment for children and youth. Today, 12 most companies are not transparent about the impact of their products, which prevents parents and young people from making informed 13 decisions and researchers from identifying problems and solutions. 9 14 17. The Surgeon General’s comments have since been echoed by President Biden 15 himself. In both his 2022 and 2023 State of the Union Addresses, the President urged the nation to 16 “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our 17 children for profit.” 10 In a January 11, 2023 op-ed, President Biden amplified this point: “The risks 18 19 7 CDC, Deaths: Leading Causes for 2018, 70(4) National Vital Statistics Reports at 10 (May 17, 20 2021), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-04-508.pdf. 21 8 Press Release, U.S. Dep’t Health & Hum. Servs., U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on Youth Mental Health Crisis Further Exposed by COVID-19 Pandemic (Dec. 7, 2021), 22 https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/12/07/us-surgeon-general-issues-advisory-on-youth- 23 mental-health-crisis-further-exposed-by-covid-19-pandemic.html. 9 24 U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, Protecting Youth Mental Health (Dec. 7, 2021), https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf 25 (emphasis in original). 26 10 The White House, President Biden’s State of the Union Address (Mar. 1, 2022), https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2022/; see also The White House, President 27 Biden’s State of the Union Address (Feb. 7, 2023), https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the- 28 union-2023/. 00635032-3 5 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 Big Tech poses for ordinary Americans are clear. Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data 2 on the things we buy, on the websites we visit, on the places we go and, most troubling of all, on 3 our children.” 11 The President observed that millions of children and adolescents struggle with 4 “violence, trauma and mental health” as a result of Defendants’ conduct and products, and again 5 stated that “[w]e must hold social-media companies accountable” for their role in this crisis. 12 6 18. These statements by President Biden and the Surgeon General are in line with a 7 substantial body of peer-reviewed scientific literature documenting the harmful impact that 8 Defendants’ products have on our children, including the various injuries suffered by Plaintiffs. This 9 body of research demonstrates that Defendants’ defectively designed products can cause the harms 10 Plaintiffs suffer: addiction, compulsive use, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, 11 self-harm, sexual exploitation, suicidal ideations, other serious diseases and injuries, and suicide 12 itself. Overall rates of these disorders have increased greatly because of widespread consumption of 13 Defendants’ products by children in this country and across the world. 14 19. Defendants knew or should have known about the risks of such addiction—which at 15 least one Defendant euphemistically calls “problematic use.” 13 They could have changed their 16 products to avoid the harm. They could have warned the public and Plaintiffs about the danger. 17 Instead, Defendants placed growth first. 18 19 11 Joe Biden, Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses, Wall St. J. (Jan. 11, 20 2023), https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy- competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411. 21 12 Joe Biden, Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses, Wall St. J. (Jan. 11, 22 2023), https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy- 23 competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411. 13 24 See Haugen_00016373 at Haugen_00016379 (internal Meta report from March 2020 summarizing internal research on “problematic use”—when a user “experienc[es] both of the 25 following issues ‘very often’ or ‘all the time’: Lack of control or feelings of guilt over Facebook use. Negative impact in at least one of the following areas: productivity, sleep, parenting, or 26 relationships.”);Haugen_00016373 at Haugen_00016412, Haugen_00016490 (referring to “problematic use” as “Loss of Control Over Time Spent” or “LCOTS”); Haugen_00016373 at 27 Haugen_00016379 (recognizing that “Problematic Use” is “sometimes referred to as ‘social media 28 addiction’ externally”). 00635032-3 6 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 20. Plaintiffs seek to recover damages from Defendants and hold them responsible for 2 personal injuries resulting from their wrongful conduct. That conduct includes: (a) designing 3 defective products that caused serious injuries to Plaintiffs; (b) failing to provide adequate warnings 4 about serious and reasonably foreseeable health risks from use of the products; (c) failing to utilize 5 reasonable care in, among other things, developing, designing, managing, operating, testing, 6 producing, labeling, marketing, advertising, promoting, controlling, selling, supplying, and 7 distributing their products; and (d) as to Meta, engaging in the deliberate concealment, 8 misrepresentation, and obstruction of public awareness of serious health risks to users of its 9 products. 10 II. THE PARTIES 11 A. PLAINTIFFS 12 21. This Complaint is filed on behalf of children who suffered personal injuries—and, in 13 cases of death, the personal representatives of their estates (“Plaintiffs”)—due to their use of 14 Defendants’ products and, where applicable, their parents, guardians, spouses, children, siblings, 15 and close family members, who suffered loss of society or consortium and other injuries as a 16 consequence of the harms to Plaintiffs (“Consortium Plaintiffs”), who file a Short Form Complaint. 17 By operation of an anticipated Court order, all allegations pled in this Complaint are deemed pled 18 in any Short Form Complaint as to the Defendants identified therein. 19 22. Plaintiffs have suffered various personal injuries because of their use of Defendants’ 20 products. Plaintiffs and Consortium Plaintiffs have been harmed as a direct and proximate result of 21 Defendants’ wrongful conduct. These harms include pain, suffering, disability, impairment, 22 disfigurement, death, an increased risk of injury and other serious illnesses, loss of enjoyment of 23 life, loss of society, aggravation or activation of preexisting conditions, scarring, inconvenience, 24 incurred costs for medical care and treatment, loss of wages and wage-earning capacity, and other 25 economic and non-economic damages (specifically including any injuries set forth in a Short Form 26 Complaint). These losses are often permanent and continuing in nature. 27 28 00635032-3 7 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 23. Plaintiffs expressly disaffirm any contract they may have made with any of the 2 Defendants, or that Defendants may claim they made with them, before reaching the age of majority, 3 as they lacked capacity to contract. 4 24. Plaintiffs also expressly disaffirm any contract they may have made with any of the 5 Defendants, or that Defendants may claim they made with them, after reaching the age of majority, 6 because Plaintiffs’ continued use of Defendants’ products was compulsive and due to addiction, not 7 an affirmation of any contract. 8 B. DEFENDANTS 9 25. The defendants identified in this section are collectively referred to as “Defendants” 10 throughout this Complaint. 11 1. Meta 12 26. Defendant Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta Platforms”) is a Delaware corporation and 13 multinational technology conglomerate. Its principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA. 14 27. Meta Platforms’ subsidiaries include, but may not be limited to, the entities identified 15 in this section, as well as a dozen others whose identity or involvement is presently unclear. 16 28. Defendant Facebook Payments, Inc. (“Facebook 1”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of 17 Meta Platforms that was incorporated in Florida on December 10, 2010. Facebook 1 manages, 18 secures, and processes payments made through Meta Platforms, among other activities. Its principal 19 place of business is in Menlo Park, CA. 20 29. Defendant Siculus, Inc. (“Siculus”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Meta Platforms 21 that was incorporated in Delaware on October 19, 2011. Siculus constructs data facilities to support 22 Meta Platforms’ products. Its principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA. 23 30. Defendant Facebook Operations, LLC (“Facebook 2”) is a wholly owned subsidiary 24 of Meta Platforms that was incorporated in Delaware on January 8, 2012. Facebook 2 is likely a 25 managing entity for Meta Platforms’ other subsidiaries. Meta Platforms is the sole member of this 26 LLC, whose principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA. 27 31. Defendant Instagram, LLC (“Instagram, LLC”) launched an app called Instagram in 28 October 2010. On or around April 7, 2012, Meta Platforms purchased Instagram, LLC for over one 00635032-3 8 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 billion dollars and reincorporated the company in Delaware. Meta Platforms is the sole member of 2 this LLC, whose principal place of business is in Menlo Park, CA. 3 32. Meta Platforms, Instagram, Siculus, Facebook 1, and Facebook 2 are referred to 4 jointly as “Meta.” 5 33. Meta owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages, develops, 6 tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes digital products available 7 through mobile- and web-based applications (“apps”), including Instagram and Facebook (together, 8 “Meta products”); Messenger; and Messenger Kids. Meta’s apps and devices are widely distributed 9 to consumers throughout the United States. 10 2. Snap 11 34. Defendant Snap Inc. (“Snap”) is a Delaware corporation. Its principal place of 12 business is in Santa Monica, CA. 13 35. Snap owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages, develops, 14 tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes the app Snapchat. Snapchat is 15 widely available to consumers throughout the United States. 16 3. ByteDance 17 36. Defendant ByteDance Ltd. is a global company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. 18 Its principal place of business is in Beijing, China. ByteDance Ltd. also maintains offices in the 19 United States, Singapore, India, and the United Kingdom, among other locations. 20 37. ByteDance Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant ByteDance Inc., a Delaware 21 corporation whose principal place of business is in Mountain View, CA. 22 38. ByteDance Ltd.’s key Chinese subsidiary is Beijing Douyin Information Service 23 Limited, f/k/a Beijing ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd. (“Beijing ByteDance”). 14 Beijing 24 ByteDance owns, operates, and holds key licenses to Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. On or 25 26 14 See Sophie Webster, ByteDance Changes Names of Subsidiaries to Douyin, Speculated to be Mulling an IPO, Tech Times (May 8, 2022), available at 27 https://www.techtimes.com/articles/275188/20220508/bytedance-changes-names-subsidiaries- 28 douyin-speculated-mulling-ipo.htm. 00635032-3 9 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 around April 30, 2021, the Chinese government took a 1% stake in, and received one of three seats 2 on the board of directors of, Beijing ByteDance. 15 Specifically, 1% of Beijing ByteDance is now 3 owned by ZhongWen (Beijing) Technology, which in turn is owned by China Internet Investment 4 Fund (China’s top Internet regulator and censor), China Media Group (China’s national broadcaster, 5 controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department), and the Beijing municipal 6 government’s investment arm. 7 39. ByteDance Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, Ltd., a Cayman 8 Island corporation with its principal place of business in Shanghai, China. 9 40. TikTok, Ltd. wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, LLC which is, and at all 10 relevant times was, a Delaware limited liability company. 11 41. TikTok, LLC wholly owns its subsidiary Defendant TikTok, Inc. f/k/a Musical.ly, 12 Inc. (“TikTok, Inc.”), a California corporation with its principal place of business in Culver City, 13 CA. 14 42. Defendants TikTok, Ltd.; TikTok, LLC; TikTok, Inc.; ByteDance Ltd.; and 15 ByteDance Inc. are referred to jointly as “ByteDance.” 16 43. ByteDance owns, operates, controls, produces, designs, maintains, manages, 17 develops, tests, labels, markets, advertises, promotes, supplies, and distributes the app TikTok. 18 TikTok is widely available to consumers throughout the United States. 19 4. Google 20 44. Google Inc. was incorporated in California in September 1998 and reincorporated in 21 Delaware in August 2003. In or around 2017, Google Inc. converted to a Delaware limited liability 22 company, Defendant Google, LLC (together with its predecessor-in-interest Google Inc., 23 “Google”). Google’s principal place of business is in Mountain View, CA. 24 25 26 15 See Juro Osawa & Shai Oster, Beijing Tightens Grip on ByteDance by Quietly Taking Stake, China Board Seat, The Information (Aug. 16, 2021), available at 27 https://www.theinformation.com/articles/beijing-tightens-grip-on-bytedance-by-quietly-taking- 28 stake-china-board-seat?rc=ubpjcg. 00635032-3 10 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 45. Since 2006, Google has operated, done business as, and wholly owned as its 2 subsidiary Defendant YouTube, LLC (“YouTube, LLC”). YouTube, LLC is a Delaware limited 3 liability company with its principal place of business in San Bruno, CA. YouTube is widely 4 available to consumers throughout the United States. 16 5 46. On October 2, 2015, Google reorganized and became a wholly owned subsidiary of 6 a new holding company, Alphabet Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business 7 in Mountain View, CA. 8 47. Google, LLC and YouTube, LLC (together, “Google”) are alter egos of one another: 9 together and in concert they own, operate, control, produce, design, maintain, manage, develop, test, 10 label, market, advertise, promote, supply, and distribute the app YouTube. 11 III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE 12 48. This Court has jurisdiction over this entire action as this case is a civil action wherein 13 the matter in controversy, exclusive of interest and costs, exceeds the jurisdictional minimum of the 14 Court. 15 49. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants because they are incorporated 16 in and have their principal places of business in California, and because they have contacts with 17 California that are so continuous and systematic that they are essentially at home in this state. Meta, 18 Google, and ByteDance, Inc. maintain their principal places of business within this State. Snap and 19 TikTok Inc. maintain their headquarters in this State. All Defendants regularly conduct and solicit 20 business in California, provide products and/or services by or to persons here, and derive substantial 21 revenue from the same. All Defendants affirmatively and extensively engage with a significant 22 percentage of this State’s residents through messages, notifications, recommendations, and other 23 communications. 24 25 26 16 See, e.g., Alphabet Inc., Form 10-Q, Oct. 25, 2022, at 4 (defining Alphabet as “Alphabet Inc. 27 and its subsidiaries.”), available at 28 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204422000090/goog-20220930.htm. 00635032-3 11 MASTER COMPLAINT (PERSONAL INJURY) 1 50. There is no federal jurisdiction in this case. All claims are brought pursuant to 2 California state law. There are no federal causes of action and Plaintiff expressly disclaim any 3 federal causes of action. 4 51. Venue is proper under the Judicial Council Coordination Proceedings (“JCCP”) 5 order, which consolidated and assigned this litigation to Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl on January 5, 2023. 6 IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS 7 A. GENERAL FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL DEFENDANTS 8 1. Defendants have targeted children as a core market. 9 52. Each Defendant has designed, engineered, marketed, and operated its products to 10 maximize the number of children who download and use them compulsively. Children are more 11 vulnerable users and have more free time on their hands than their adult counterparts. Because 12 children use Defendants’ products more, they see more ads, and as a result generate more ad revenue 13 for Defendants. Young users also generate a trove of data about their preferences, habits, and 14 behaviors. That information is Defendants’ most valuable commodity. Defendants mine and 15 commodify that data, including by selling to advertisers the ability to reach incredibly narrow 16 tranches of the population, including children. Each Defendant placed its app(s) into the stream of 17 commerce and generated revenues through the distribution of those apps at the expense of the 18 consuming public and Plaintiffs. 19 53. This exploitation of children, including each of the individual Plaintiffs in these 20 actions, has become central to Defendants’ profitability. Like the cigarette industry a generation 21 earlier, Defend