Bloomberg Law Quotes Jacob Malherbe on Social Media Addiction Litigation Surge

Bloomberg Law Quotes Jacob Malherbe on Social Media Addiction Litigation and Litigation Funding Surge

Mass Tort Ad Agency founder Jacob Malherbe was quoted in Bloomberg Law’s coverage of the social media addiction litigation — one of the most significant mass tort developments of 2026. The article, published March 5, 2026, examines how litigation funders are beginning to back plaintiff firms in the social media addiction cases as the bellwether trial against Meta and Google advances in California state court.

Malherbe was cited as a leading voice on the advertising and intake side of the litigation, with Bloomberg Law specifically noting MTAA’s role running social media advertising campaigns for plaintiff law firms pursuing these cases.

“Once documents came out in discovery, I think it made a lot of people change their mind because they basically developed a product that they knew would hurt people because people would be basically addicted to what came next.”

— Jacob Malherbe, Founder, Mass Tort Ad Agency
Bloomberg Law, March 5, 2026

Malherbe also noted a clear market signal: funder interest spiked after Snap and TikTok reached confidential settlements with the bellwether plaintiff in January 2026 — a development that significantly de-risked the cases for both funders and plaintiff firms still evaluating whether to enter the space.

What This Means for Plaintiff Firms in 2026

The Bloomberg Law coverage confirms what we’ve been seeing in our own campaign data for months. Social media addiction is no longer a fringe tort. It is mainstream mass tort litigation with institutional money behind it, a live bellwether trial producing precedent in real time, and a claimant population — teens and young adults with documented mental health harm — that is both massive and deeply sympathetic to juries.

The settlement of the Snap and TikTok cases before trial was the inflection point. It proved that at least two of the major defendants believe their exposure is real. That’s the signal funders needed. That’s also the signal plaintiff firms on the sidelines needed.

We’ve been running social media addiction advertising campaigns since 2021. Here’s what we know from that data:

• Cost per signed case has remained favorable — between $350 and $450 including intake — because the claimant pool is enormous and the qualifying criteria resonate immediately with parents
• Funder-backed campaigns scale faster — firms with litigation funding behind them can commit to higher ad spend, which compounds their case inventory advantage over firms waiting on the sideline
• The window is still open — unlike Roundup or talc where inventory is exhausted, social media addiction claimant volume is still building. Firms entering now are not late.

MTAA’s Role in Social Media Addiction Advertising

Mass Tort Ad Agency has been at the forefront of social media addiction advertising since the cases first gained traction. We’ve run campaigns across Facebook and Instagram for plaintiff firms pursuing claims against Meta, YouTube, Snap, TikTok, and other platforms.

Our approach: empathy-first creative that speaks to parents — not legal language, not settlement figures — combined with precise demographic targeting (parents of teens aged 13–21, behavioral signals around mental health content engagement, geographic stacking in high-density markets). The campaigns that perform best lead with the parent’s experience, not the lawsuit.

If your firm is evaluating social media addiction cases and you want to understand what the advertising economics actually look like right now, reach out directly. We’ve been in this market longer than almost anyone and the data we have is specific, current, and actionable.

Read the full Bloomberg Law article here →