For Families

Your legal options may be broader than you know.

Courts are actively reconsidering platform immunity. A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that recommendation algorithms — not just hosted content — may be subject to liability. Several law firms now specialize in platform accountability cases at no upfront cost to families.

The white paper produced by the Hoffman Lenses Initiative documents the known evidence of platform harm and the legal theory of the case. It is available for use by families, attorneys, and advocates under Creative Commons license.

Read the white paper →

Evidence you may not know you have.

If your child used a social media platform, that platform holds records of every piece of content served to them by its algorithm. In the United States, you can request this data from platforms under existing data portability laws. In the UK and EU, GDPR gives you a right to this data regardless of whether legal proceedings are underway.

Preserve the following immediately, before anything is deleted or accounts are closed:

• The child's device, ideally unmodified
• Any social media accounts (do not delete; preserve login credentials)
• Screenshots of content that was served, if accessible
• Screen time reports, if enabled on the device
• Any messages, searches, or saved content

Submit a data access request to each platform your child used. Most platforms provide a downloadable archive of account activity including content served, watch history, and interaction signals. This data is what the algorithm used to build the profile it used to target your child.

An attorney specializing in platform cases can issue a litigation hold letter, which legally obligates the platform to preserve records beyond their standard deletion schedules. This should be done as early as possible.

Testimony changes laws. Yours may be what tips the balance.

The families who have spoken publicly — Ian Russell, Matthew Bergman's clients, the Andersons, the Blackwells — have moved cases and legislation forward in ways that a decade of academic research could not. Platforms count on families remaining silent in their grief. The ones who have not stayed silent have changed what is politically and legally possible.

You should never feel obligated to speak publicly. Advocacy takes many forms, including private testimony to regulators, letters to elected officials, or simply allowing your family's case to proceed in court. But if you are willing to share your experience, organizations exist to amplify your voice.

Making the harm visible — for everyone who comes after.

The Hoffman Browser is an open-source desktop browser that analyzes any webpage for behavioral manipulation techniques in real time, using a local AI model. Nothing leaves your device. No data is collected. No account is required.

The Behavioral Manipulation Intelligence Database (BMID) documents, platform by platform, what each company knew and when, what harms have been documented and by whom, and what the financial motive behind each design decision is.

Both tools are free. Both are open-source. Both are built specifically so that the argument "we didn't know" becomes impossible to sustain — in court, in legislatures, and in public.

Learn about the browser →