A high-stakes trial sparked by a California woman who first logged onto social media at age 10. Another lawsuit in Georgia filed by a school district despairing at distracted students. Dozens more legal actions brought by state attorneys general accusing digital platforms of playing mindgames with children.

These are among thousands of lawsuits filed against social media companies with the claim that they purposely designed their apps to be addictive to young users, causing mental health harm and interfering with their education in the pursuit of profit.

Plaintiffs in these cases are pursuing a new legal strategy: they’re claiming that it’s the design of social media platforms — not the content — that is leading to harm.

This month, the first case to go to trial will test the strength of that theory and shape how thousands of other lawsuits against social media companies are argued.

The trial comes at a time when schools find themselves on the frontlines of an ongoing youth mental health crisis that accelerated during the pandemic.

Child online safety advocates have told EdSurge that while they’ve been sounding the alarm on the harms that children face online, there hasn’t been meaningful change from social media platforms. Educators have long been frustrated over shrinking attention spans and mental health issues they say have worsened as students spend more time online. That frustration has crescendoed into a wave of cellphone bans and wider debate about how much time kids should be spending with screens.

‘Addictive’ Apps

Legal experts say that what sets this new wave of litigation apart from past lawsuits is that plaintiffs are accusing social media platforms of purposefully designing “addictive” platforms. That means cases will hinge on the plaintiffs’ ability to prove that social media companies had a duty to warn them about the pitfalls of using social media, failed in that duty, and caused harm as a result — invoking the need for consumer protection rather than raising issues with content.

Arguments in a case that began in early February in California Superior Court in Los Angeles, spotlight a plaintiff known in court filings as KGM who claims her use of social media from a young age led to mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.

Arguments in lawsuits brought by school districts, which have been consolidated in the Northern District of California, are expected to start during the summer.

Joseph McNally, former federal prosecutor and director of Emerging Torts and Litigation at McNicholas & McNicholas in California, says that the landmark mass legal action of his childhood was against the tobacco industry for knowing and doing nothing about the addictive and deadly nature of its products. This wave of social media lawsuits will be that for kids today, he believes.

“At a high level, what the school districts are saying is, ‘You targeted kids,’” McNally explains. “‘You knew that your product was potentially dangerous because it was addictive.’”

Tied into accusations that social media companies intentionally made their products addictive to kids, school districts are also arguing that these companies have created a public nuisance, according to corporate attorney Princess Uchekwe, of The Chief Counsel in New York.

A lawsuit in California accuses social media companies of negligence by designing “addictive” apps and failing to warn users of potential harm. The case’s outcome will affect thousands of similar lawsuits around the country. Document source: Los Angeles Superior Court of California

“Essentially, these schools are saying that because social media platforms are so addictive to children and are creating so many of these mental health issues,” Uchekwe explains, “that as a society, it’s now become a public nuisance that we have to deal with. For school districts in particular, they are saying that now they have to redirect resources that could otherwise be used on teaching and the curriculum to manage these mental health issues that are caused by excessive usage of these social media platforms.”

A Novel Argument

Another novel issue that will be tested by these cases is whether social media companies can successfully invoke the protection of Section 230, McNally says. It’s the part of the 1996 telecommunications law that says online platforms cannot be held liable for content posted by third parties, and it’s widely regarded as making free and open communication online possible.

Meta is defending itself in these lawsuits by arguing that it’s the content and not the app itself that’s causing social media addiction, McNally explains. Plaintiffs are sticking to the argument that platform features like Instagram’s algorithm are at fault for addiction.

“It’s a tough line, because in many ways, the content and the features and the platform are very much inextricably intertwined,” McNally says. “A jury’s going to have to sort through what is platform harm versus content harm, and that’s not an easy task.”

The defense’s strategy is taking shape in the courtroom. YouTube, part of the ongoing trial in Los Angeles, is arguing that it’s not a social media platform at all — but an entertainment platform akin to Netflix. Meta has argued that KGM’s childhood mental health issues didn’t originate from her use of social media.

Social media companies are also arguing that ‘social media addiction’ is not a clinically recognised condition — and that even if it was, there’s no proof that use of their platforms directly causes mental health harm.

“In these social media cases, what [plaintiffs are] alleging here is harm to the mind,” Uchekwe explains, “and that can be very, very difficult to prove, because mental health is just so multifaceted. It’s going to rely on a lot of expert testimony, a lot of the evidence, maybe a lot of the internal documents that they have during discovery that show that these companies knew, for example, that these features were super addictive and did not really do anything to alleviate that.”

McNally echoed her analysis of the importance internal documents will play. As an example, he pointed to an internal Instagram email that appears in court records in the Northern District of California case coming to trial in the summer. It states: “IG [Instagram] is a drug. We are pushing users.”

“I spent 17 years as a federal prosecutor, and some of the most compelling evidence in any trial are insider emails,” McNally says. “Anybody can come to court 10 years later and get on the stand and testify as to what they thought or what they intended. But really, when you dive into contemporaneous emails that are happening at the time a product is being developed, or a time that an issue is being evaluated, that will really tell you the story.”

Emails presented in arguments during the trial that’s underway revealed an internal debate at Instagram over whether to reverse a ban on facial filters that mimicked the results of plastic surgery. Some team members wanted to keep the ban in place while gathering more information on the filter’s potential effects on teen girls.

“Plaintiffs have identified some emails here that, when you just look at them on their face, certainly show that there was a debate going on at Facebook on the addictive nature of Instagram and other products,” McNally says. “The defendants will argue that they evaluated that, they weighed that, or they’re being taken out of context, but there are some really, really strong internal emails that I think strengthen the plaintiff’s hand here.”

Why a Bellwether Case?

The ongoing trial in the Los Angeles Superior Court of California has been called a “bellwether” or “landmark” case because, in the simplest terms, it will test whether the legal theories argued by both sides are successful or not.

If the plaintiffs win the Los Angeles case and are awarded substantial damages, for example, it would encourage social media companies to settle other cases rather than go to trial.

“On the other side of that,” McNally says, “if the jury comes back and ultimately concludes that the plaintiffs didn’t meet their burden and finds that the defendants are not liable, then the tech companies would really have the upper hand.”

The Los Angeles case will reveal jurors’ views on addiction, as it relates to Instagram, YouTube and other social media, McNally says: “If a jury comes back and doesn’t buy the addiction theory here, it makes those cases that the school districts have a lot more challenging to bring.”

He adds that this is the start of a long road for school districts and others pursuing litigation against social media companies. While the platforms won’t go away, McNally predicts that companies’ desire to project trustworthiness and have good reputations will motivate them to put up more safeguards for kids.

from the with-regards-to-your-inquiry dept

Two weeks ago, we ran a bit of an AMA experiment, with a call on Bluesky for fans of Techdirt to ask Mike any questions they might have. We got lots of great responses and now, as promised, Mike is delivering the answers on this week’s episode of the podcast!

You can also download this episode directly in MP3 format.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

Filed Under: ama, ask me anything, podcast

Following additional review, Ars has determined that the story “After a routine code rejection, an AI agent published a hit piece on someone by name,” did not meet our standards. Ars Technica has retracted this article. Originally published on Feb 13, 2026 at 2:40PM EST and removed on Feb 13, 2026 at 4:22PM EST.

Migrations are ongoing

Broadcom introduced changes to VMware that are especially unfriendly to small- and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and Gartner previously predicted that 35 percent of VMware workloads would migrate else by 2028.

CloudBolt’s survey also examined how respondents are migrating workloads off of VMware. Currently, 36 percent of participants said they migrated 1–24 percent of their environment off of VMware. Another 32 percent said that they have migrated 25–49 percent; 10 percent said that they’ve migrated 50–74 percent of workloads; and 2 percent have migrated 75 percent or more of workloads. Five percent of respondents said that they have not migrated from VMware at all.

Among migrated workloads, 72 percent moved to public cloud infrastructure as a service, followed by Microsoft’s Hyper-V/Azure stack (43 percent of respondents).

Overall, 86 percent of respondents “are actively reducing their VMware footprint,” CloudBolt’s report said.

“The fear has cooled, but the pressure hasn’t—and most teams are now making practical moves to build leverage and optionality—even if for some that includes the realization that a portion of their estate never moves off VMware,” Mark Zembal, CloudBolt’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

While bundled products, fewer options, resellers, and higher prices make VMware harder to justify for many, especially SMB customers, migration is a long process with its own costs, including time spent researching alternatives and building relevant skills. CloudBolt’s reported multi-platform complexity (52 percent) and skills gaps (33 percent) topped the list of migration challenges.

“As organizations diversify away from VMware, they inherit the operational burden of managing multiple platforms with different operational and governance models,” the report reads.

While companies determine the best ways to limit their dependence on VMware, Broadcom can still make money from smaller customers it doesn’t deem necessary for the long term.

“Their strategy was never to keep every customer,” CloudBolt’s report says. “It was to maximize value from those still on the platform while the market slowly diversifies. The model assumes churn and it’s built to make the economics work anyway. Broadcom has done the math—and they’re fine with it.”

If the rumor mill is to be believed, 2026 will feature an unusually large harvest of Apple products. This is shaping up to be a standout year for MacBooks, and we might be only a couple weeks away from seeing the first new models.

Apple’s “Special Experience” slated for Wednesday, March 4, indicates that the company is set to unveil new products soon. While I was expecting to see new MacBooks hit by the end of this month, the early-March event still fits Apple’s spring refresh schedule. We could see a new MacBook unveiled on March 4 along with an eighth-gen iPad Air and a low-cost iPhone 17E. Taking place in New York, London and Shanghai instead of at Apple HQ in Cupertino, California, these smaller media gatherings might be indicative of less explosive reveals. It’s more likely we see MacBook chipset upgrades than more experimental MacBook products rumored for later in the year.

The MacBook Pro is lined up to be the first MacBook update of the year, with Apple bringing the higher-powered M5 Pro and M5 Max chips to both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro lines in March. Then Apple could move to the other end of the spectrum and release its rumored $599 budget MacBook. Also in the first half of the year, the MacBook Air is likely to receive an M5 chip refresh. And before the year is out, we could see the first MacBook Pros with OLED touchscreens.

Watch this: Apple’s iPhone 17E Is Near: Here’s What We Expect

05:58

Internet speculation has given way to more concrete evidence of these MacBook releases, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman cites internal Apple communications that reveal “a remarkably busy 2026 with a slew of product releases over the next several weeks.”

According to Gurman, the M5 refreshes for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air could be just around the corner, and the budget MacBook might not be far behind. Let’s take a closer look at the timing, pricing and details of the MacBook refreshes expected this year.

The reported 2026 MacBook release timeline

While the rumors swirl about the MacBook releases expected this year, we don’t have exact dates for when the new models will be announced. It’s extremely likely that Apple’s March media event will set the stage for the company to unveil more M5 MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air, but it’s harder to pinpoint when the other products are slated for release. From what I’ve gathered online, here’s my best guess of when we might see new MacBooks this year.

• March: M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros, M5 MacBook Air
• First half of 2026: Budget MacBook (estimated price of $599)
• Second half of 2026: Touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro

Read on for a closer look at the timing, pricing and details of the MacBook refreshes expected this year.

M5 Pro and M5 Max updates for the MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro was the first MacBook to receive Apple’s latest M5 processor when the 14-inch MacBook Pro was released last October. Now, Apple is expected to extend its M5 offerings and bring the higher-powered M5 Pro and M5 Max chips to the MacBook Pro. 

The 16-inch MacBook Pro is still waiting for its M5 update and should also get M5 Pro and M5 Max chips at the same time as its smaller Pro sibling.

CNET’s Lori Grunin tested the M5 chip and noted that it delivers big performance improvements over the M4 “in the narrow areas where it applies, namely on-GPU processing for AI and ray-traced graphics.” Still, the M5 MacBook Pro struggles to keep up with the world of AAA gaming.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max processors will likely follow in the footsteps of previous M-series Pro and Max chips, featuring additional CPU and GPU cores and higher memory allotments.

MacBook Pro models with these high-end chips come at higher prices geared toward processing-intensive tasks like video rendering, 3D modeling and AI workloads. If pricing remains stable, which isn’t a sure bet with the worldwide RAM shortage, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro chip will likely start at $1,999 and the 16-inch Pro with an M5 Pro will likely start at $2,499.

As with the last MacBook Pro update last October, these M5 updates will be internal upgrades without any significant changes to the laptop’s design. According to Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, these M5 Pro and M5 Max updates will arrive with Apple’s next major Mac software update, MacOS 26.3, in February or March. Now that Apple has unveiled its March 4 event date, it has become much more likely that we’ll see these upgraded MacBook Pros arrive next month. If you are eyeing a MacBook Pro purchase, it probably makes sense to hold off and wait for the new models to arrive.

Finally, a true budget MacBook?

Apple is reportedly planning to enter the budget laptop market with a low-cost model that’ll be much more affordable than the current cheapest model, the M4 MacBook Air, which starts at $999. This new model will ditch Apple’s M-series in favor of an A-series chip — the same processor that powers the iPhone and could cost as little as $699 or as low as $599 with Apple’s education discount.

Apple already makes the claim that the A19 Pro chip that debuted in the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone Air provides “MacBook Pro levels of compute.” But according to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it’s possible — even probable — that a budget MacBook would utilize an A18 Pro chip (the chip used in the iPhone 16 Pro) instead.

A budget laptop with an A18 Pro chip would likely offer diminishing returns in comparison to the MacBook M4 chips, running roughly 40% slower than the current generation of Macs. The A18 Pro also doesn’t feature support for Thunderbolt ports, so the budget MacBook would likely come outfitted with less-capable USB-C ports instead.

The other way Apple will reportedly keep the prices down on this new budget MacBook is by shrinking the display size. Kuo reported the laptop will feature an “approximately 13-inch display,” which is a claim corroborated by Gurman. It could feature a 12.9-inch screen, which would be a bit smaller than the 13.6-inch MacBook Air. But it should also be a little lighter than the 2.7-pound Air, making it not only the most affordable MacBook but also the most portable.

This new budget MacBook will compete with Chromebooks and entry-level Windows laptops, which would be a new segment of the market for an Apple laptop. Gurman wrote that the device is intended for “people who primarily browse the web, work on documents or conduct light media editing.” This could be the new MacBook for students. Timing is a little murkier for the release of this budget MacBook, but hopefully it will arrive before the start of the next school year.

M5 coming to the MacBook Air

Just as Apple is reportedly gearing up to give its premium MacBook Pros a refresh with new, more powerful chips, the thinnest, most portable MacBooks are also set to get an upgrade. It’s fairly standard for the MacBook Air to get a springtime refresh, and the M4 MacBook Air was released in March 2025.

Gurman reported that we’ll likely see an M5 MacBook Air release during the first quarter of the year, so we can expect the refresh in the same time frame this year. Like the MacBook Pros, we’re not expecting to see a redesign with the M5 MacBook Air. A new-look Air is at least a couple more years away, according to Gurman. 

The 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage that have been integrated into previous versions of the MacBook Air will likely be standard for any M5 MacBook Air. (I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the minimum storage gets moved up to 512GB, though.) 

The M4 MacBook Air starts at $999, and I expect pricing to remain unchanged for the M5 Air.

The first OLED MacBook Pros

Would Apple release two different sets of MacBook Pro laptops in the same year? It’s more likely than you’d think, and it wouldn’t be unprecedented.

Apple released two generations of MacBook Pros in 2023, beginning the year with M2 MacBook Pros and ending it with M3 MacBook Pros. So we know that if Apple deems an advancement significant enough, it will issue multiple refreshes in the same year.

An OLED MacBook Pro lineup would certainly qualify as one of those advancements. According to Gurman, the OLED MacBook Pros would achieve several firsts for Mac computers, integrating a brand new generation of chips and a touchscreen display. Like the previous MacBook Pros, the OLED MacBook lineup would include both 14- and 16-inch models.

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Apple has been catching up to the rest of the industry by integrating OLED panels into more products, including some of its previous iPhone and iPad Pro models. But as Gurman noted, this will mark the “first time that this higher-end, thinner system is used in a Mac.”

Touchscreen displays have been common in Windows laptops for some time, but this rumored design would be the first time Apple integrates them into a MacBook. “The company has taken years to formulate its approach to the market, aiming to improve on current designs,” wrote Gurman. “[Apple] has developed a reinforced hinge and screen hardware to prevent the display from bouncing back or moving when touched.” 

The design will reportedly still integrate standard MacBook Pro keyboard and trackpad functionality. What will apparently change, however, is the camera cutout at the top of the screen. Gurman reported that Apple is retiring the iconic “notch” in favor of “a so-called hole-punch design that leaves a display area around the sensor,” similar to the Dynamic Island introduced on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.

The OLED MacBook Pros could be the first Mac computers to use next-generation M6 chips, according to Gurman. They’ll also feature thinner, lighter frames that make them more portable than current MacBook Pro designs.

If the MacBook Pro adopts a touchscreen design, the computer will be the closest merger between Mac and iPad we’ve seen yet. Industry analyst Kuo believes this shift “reflects Apple’s long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the overall user experience.”

As it stands, though, the OLED MacBook Pro will still provide a more traditional computer experience than other Apple products — don’t expect the fully hands-on, tactile navigation of an iPad quite yet. A trackpad and keyboard control scheme will remain important pillars of the MacBook experience.

The pricier components and OLED panels will likely result in an increase in the price of the OLED MacBook Pro. The OLED models will likely be several hundred dollars more than their current Liquid Retina display counterparts. The current 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, and the 16-inch Pro begins at $2,499.

The OLED MacBook Pros are rumored to go into production this year. While Gurman previously reported that the OLED MacBook Pros might be released in early 2027, more recent internal reports suggest that Apple is targeting the end of 2026 for a potential release.

Over the past 15 years, password managers have grown from a niche security tool used by the technology savvy into an indispensable security tool for the masses, with an estimated 94 million US adults—or roughly 36 percent of them—having adopted them. They store not only passwords for pension, financial, and email accounts, but often cryptocurrency credentials, payment card numbers, and other sensitive data.

All eight of the top password managers have adopted the term “zero knowledge” to describe the complex encryption system they use to protect the data vaults that users store on their servers. The definitions vary slightly from vendor to vendor, but they generally boil down to one bold assurance: that there is no way for malicious insiders or hackers who manage to compromise the cloud infrastructure to steal vaults or data stored in them. These promises make sense, given previous breaches of LastPass and the reasonable expectation that state-level hackers have both the motive and capability to obtain password vaults belonging to high-value targets.

A bold assurance debunked

Typical of these claims are those made by Bitwarden, Dashlane, and LastPass, which together are used by roughly 60 million people. Bitwarden, for example, says that “not even the team at Bitwarden can read your data (even if we wanted to).” Dashlane, meanwhile, says that without a user’s master password, “malicious actors can’t steal the information, even if Dashlane’s servers are compromised.” LastPass says that no one can access the “data stored in your LastPass vault, except you (not even LastPass).”

New research shows that these claims aren’t true in all cases, particularly when account recovery is in place or password managers are set to share vaults or organize users into groups. The researchers reverse-engineered or closely analyzed Bitwarden, Dashlane, and LastPass and identified ways that someone with control over the server—either administrative or the result of a compromise—can, in fact, steal data and, in some cases, entire vaults. The researchers also devised other attacks that can weaken the encryption to the point that ciphertext can be converted to plaintext.