An Axios report revealed that Meta on Thursday began removing advertisements from attorneys who were seeking clients that claim to have been harmed by social media while under the age of 18. Axios identified more than a dozen such ads that were deactivated today, some of which came from large national firms like Morgan & Morgan and Sokolove Law.
“We’re actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits and are removing ads that attempt to recruit plaintiffs for them,” a Meta spokesperson tells Axios. “We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful.”
READ: Meta, YouTube face court testimony from therapist in social media addiction lawsuit (February 26, 2026)
Almost all the ads ran on both Facebook and Instagram. Some also appeared on Threads and Messenger, as well as Meta’s Audience Network, which distributes ads to thousands of third-party sites.
One such ad read: “Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren’t just teenage phases — they’re symptoms linked to social media addiction in children. Platforms knew this and kept targeting kids anyway.” Some of the ads, however, remain active.
This comes just two weeks after Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark California case about social media addiction. A panel in Los Angeles ordered Meta and Google to pay $3 million to a 20-year-old woman who accused the tech giants of making her addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.
The jury of twelve, including seven women and five men, held the companies responsible for designing products with features hampering the plaintiff’s mental health. The jury instructed Meta to pay 70% of the damages, with the remaining 30% to be paid by Google. An independent lawsuit will decide the financial amount of compensation.
READ: California trial puts Instagram, Facebook addiction claims on trial (
There are still thousands of lawsuits in the United States that allege companies like Meta and Google are accountable for developing addictive products with harmful effects. Lawyers across the country are now seeking new plaintiffs, in the hopes of bringing a class action lawsuit that could result in lucrative verdicts.
According to the report, Meta seems to be relying on part of its terms of service which says “We also can remove or restrict access to content, features, services, or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate misuse of our services or adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Meta.” While there are no similar restrictions in the advertising standards, those are subject to the TOS.