In October of 2023, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced she was joining a massive lawsuit against Meta, the social media company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Michigan was among 33 states that jointly filed the federal lawsuit in California’s Northern District Court. The states alleged the social media giant violated consumer protection laws, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by designing its products to engage young users, despite knowing that social media was harmful to them.

“Meta has, for some time, been aware of the dangers that ongoing and constant exposure to social media has on young people,” Nessel said in a press release announcing her office’s involvement in the lawsuit.

This week, nearly three years later, the first trial of the potential landmark case is finally scheduled to begin.

But Michigan is no longer involved in the case. Nessel’s office quietly dropped out of the lawsuit in 2025.

Still, others in Michigan are pursuing justice against social media companies. All told, thousands of cases are pending in the courts. The aim is not just to force the companies to pay for alleged harm to its users, but to force changes in how social media apps work.

The product liability angle

About four years ago, Matthew Bergman heard about a whistleblower at Meta, who leaked internal documents to the Wall Street Journal showing that the company knew how harmful Instagram was for young users, particularly girls. Bergman is an attorney with experience representing people exposed to asbestos.

“I saw in the social media phenomenon, a very similar paradigm,” said Bergman, “a ubiquitous product, a public harm, a public health emergency, direct causation and corporate malfeasance.”

He started a firm called the Social Media Victims Law Center, which is now representing more than 1,000 people in lawsuits against social media companies.

One of those people is John DeMay, who lives in Marquette.

When it came time for his son Jordan to get a phone, DeMay was not passive.

“I did everything you could possibly imagine to keep him off of social media but allow him to have the phone and access to other people,” DeMay said.

He set screen limits. He read text messages. He bought a separate router that automatically turned off the internet at night.

But as he got older, Jordan DeMay made his way onto social media.

On Instagram one night, a cyber crime group based in Nigeria targeted 17-year-old Jordan in a sextortion scheme. Panicked, Jordan took his own life.

Two of the perpetrators pleaded guilty in federal court.

But that didn’t end the story for John.

He learned about the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, who released internal documents showing that Meta knew some of the features of its apps, its algorithm, the infinite scroll — could be harmful, to teenagers specifically. He learned of the documents showing that Meta knew criminals around the world were using its apps to recruit, and to carry out their crimes.

“They design their products to engage users,” DeMay said. “They want to get more users — younger and younger — on their platforms for longer amounts of time.”

DeMay is now among the people suing Meta.

Multiple tracks

These individual lawsuits, which Bergman is helping to shepherd through courts, are actually just one part of the mass of lawsuits against social media companies. That includes lawsuits filed by school districts. About two dozen Michigan school districts have joined, including Ann Arbor Public Schools. Oakland and Monroe counties have also joined.

And there’s the lawsuit filed by attorneys general in 2023. In this lawsuit, states claimed the company’s apps addicted kids and illegally gathered information on them.

Meta denied the allegations and countered by asking for documents from each state.

But when the deadline came to turn over the documents, the Michigan attorney general’s office said it was instead withdrawing from the lawsuit.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the AG’s office said the document requests “imposed overly burdensome litigation costs.”

“The Court approved most of Meta’s voluminous discovery demands upon the States and their agencies (such as MDHHS), demands with which the State of Michigan could not possibly comply, and especially so within the very short timeframe so ordered by the Court,” wrote Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for Nessel’s office.

In a filing with the court, the attorney general’s office estimated that, even with a narrowed list, Meta’s request would involve producing about 700,000 documents from the state.

Michigan officially dropped out of the lawsuit in a filing in January, 2025. Three other states — Georgia, Missouri and North Dakota — dropped out as well. The remaining 29 states in the lawsuit then amended their initial complaint against the company, narrowing their arguments.

“I can’t speak to what led to the decisions of the Michigan attorney general, and I would not second guess that,” said Mathew Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center. “But the movement … continues undaunted.”

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. But the company is a member of an organization called NetChoice.

Paul Taske directs the NetChoice litigation center. He argues that posts on social media count as speech. And he thinks neither courts, nor lawmakers should be allowed to regulate how social media companies present posts to users.

“You wouldn’t for example, be able to tell The New York Times, ‘Oh, hey you have stories on there that we think would be, you know, distressing to a 15-year-old, and so please stop putting, you know, global news events on the front page, please put those somewhere in the middle, and lead with cartoons, or arts and leisure,” Taske said.

This is the argument social media companies have been using for years to avoid regulation on their algorithms. But attorneys like Matthew Bergman say those arguments are starting to crumble in court.

Already two lawsuits, one in federal court, and one in state court in New Mexico, have found Meta liable for harms to users. Taske said he believes appeals could overturn those decisions.

And while Michigan, as a state, may not be involved in the lawsuit starting now in California, the result could still impact people here.

If any of the lawsuits force Meta or other social media companies to change how they design their apps, those changes will likely be rolled out everywhere.

“I am confident that we will prevail,” said Bergman.

The state’s energy regulator is hosting a workshop in Grand Rapids Tuesday to talk about improving energy affordability.

As electricity rates are set to rise for many Michigan customers, the Michigan Public Service Commission is looking to revamp its energy assistance programs.

The goal is for no household to have to spend more than six percent of its income on energy.

The workshop will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in room 102/104 at Grand Valley State University’s Daniel and Pamella DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health, 333 Michigan St. NE in Grand Rapids.

Samarth Medakkar is with Advanced Energy United, a trade group for alternative energy companies. He said growing energy demands will continue to put pressure on prices.

“One of the things we should continue to focus on, and the narrative should be focused on is on the distribution system upgrades that would otherwise still need to be made.”

For Medakkar, these distribution system improvements could include more “virtual power plants” — essentially a system of stitched together, small, alternative energy resources that could include small solar installations, batteries, and other small-scale energy components. By combining, and then coordinating distribution between the smaller scale resources, Medakkar said the state could continue to add energy capacity without the massive investments needed to build new, large-scale power plants.

The Michigan Public Service Commission said the workshop Tuesday in Grand Rapids will be a way for people to give feedback on how to improve energy assistance programs, and to spread awareness of programs meant to reduce energy usage in homes.

“I definitely would applaud the MPSC’s efforts to improve participation of those folks who are participating in energy assistance programs to also participate in energy waste reduction programs, because energy waste reduction programs are incredibly important,” Medakkar added.

The MPSC will also host a workshop on affordability in Detroit on September 3. The location has not yet been announced.

Hi there, election-curious people,

We did it. We made it through the attack ads, the debates, the polling. We survived the primaries. For our reward, we get more of the same, all the way until November. 🎉

My colleagues have been busy breaking down the primary results, but here at The Mids, we’re plugging ahead trying to answer more of your questions.

One of the topics you’ve asked about repeatedly is something I’ve struggled with myself: judges.

Judges: The non-partisan conundrum

Judicial candidates are technically non-partisan in Michigan, which is why you most likely didn’t see judges on your primary ballot. Judicial candidates would only appear on a primary ballot if there are more than twice as many candidates as there are seats up for grabs.

The non-partisanness of judges gets a little fuzzy when it comes to candidates for the state Supreme Court. Those candidates must first be nominated by parties at the party convention, then placed on the ballot as “non-partisan.” How are they still non-partisan? No idea, really. Michigan just does this weird.

There are two open seats this year in the Michigan Supreme Court. You can find our coverage of the Supreme Court here. As we get closer to the general election, stay tuned for more interviews with these judicial candidates.

Research tips straight from Lansing

For me, though, the most challenging judicial races to track are at the local level, in circuit courts and district courts where many of the proceedings involve low-level cases that don’t get a lot of public attention.

To get some tips on how to research these races, I went to Lansing and talked to Tom Boyd, the State Court Administrator.

“It’s not easy,” Boyd told me. “The judicial branch is not a representative branch of government.”

Boyd was a district court judge in Ingham County before he took over as the State Court Administrator. And he told me part of the problem with researching judges is simply that they don’t give you the same information as partisan candidates who are running to represent you.

“Judges don’t express opinions that you can then match with yours,” he added. “A judge’s job is to apply the facts to the law, so what you’re looking for is competency.”

To assess a candidate’s competency, Boyd said you can look them up at the State Bar of Michigan. You can search for general information on judge candidates here, or check the Attorney Discipline Board to find out if they were ever disciplined as an attorney.

If the candidate is an incumbent, you can also search the Judicial Tenure Commission for any public complaints filed against them.

That is really just the start of where to look. Boyd pointed out that in many smaller local communities, news outlets still cover courts fairly closely. So he said you can head to your “favorite search engine” and look for any stories that pop up from previous cases.

Judges also have to file financial reports, so check your local county clerk website to find that information.

As with any election research, you’ll have to poke around for a bit to feel like you’ve got a handle on it. But you got this!

Only three more months to go! Next time, we’re talking about a ballot question that appears every 16 years . . .

🥁 Drumroll please! 🥁

A Con(stitutional)-Con(vention)!

May The Mids be with you,
Dustin Dwyer, Reporter

Have more questions about the midterms? Fill out the form below!

Producer's Corner

Are you curious how Michigan’s judicial system works? What does each court type do and how many courts are there? Read the article below to find out!

A Muskegon woman is suing a Taco Bell franchisee and a lettuce company over her cyclosporiasis infection.

Kellye O’Hara alleges in a federal lawsuit filed this week that she ate at a Taco Bell in Whitehall in early July, and had hard shell tacos that included lettuce.

A few days later, her symptoms started. She eventually went to an urgent care and was transferred to a Grand Rapids hospital for treatment. She later tested positive for cyclosporiasis, and had frequent diarrhea, severe pain, and chills.

The lawsuit says she’s allergic to the medicine commonly used to treat cyclospora, and a replacement has been on back order. Her lawsuit says she was released from the hospital but still has not fully recovered. 

Michigan Public has reached out to Border Foods LLC and Taylor Farms for comment.

In an update this week, the state health department reported more than 10,000 residents have been infected in the cyclosporiasis outbreak, and nearly 200 have been hospitalized.