The TikTok That Broke The Courts: How Social Media Created FastLaw
by Niall Chair, cruzzbunch intern (fastlaw inmate)
"Hey besties! Today I'm gonna show you how to make $10k from home with just your phone and a printer! #lawsuit #getrich #hustleculture"
The TikTok that broke America's legal system started innocently enough. A 19-year-old community college dropout named Mia Velazquez, filming from her bedroom in Fresno, explained how she'd made $12,375 by filing small claims lawsuits against random Twitter users for defamation.
"It's so easy! You just find someone with assets - like their LinkedIn says they own a house or have a good job - then you look through their posts for anything mean they've said. File in forma pauperis so it's free, claim emotional distress, and when they don't show up to court because they think it's fake... cha-ching! Default judgment!"
The video got 2.3 million views in 24 hours. Within a week, #LawsuitChallenge was trending.
By month's end, county clerks across America were drowning in paperwork. Tech workers, small business owners, and anyone with a visible online presence found themselves served with dozens of frivolous suits. Most ignored them, assuming they were scams. Those who did typically lost by default.
The phenomenon hit critical mass when a group of cryptocurrency day traders realized they could automate the process. Their bot scraped LinkedIn for targets, generated boilerplate complaints, and even handled electronic filing in jurisdictions that allowed it. They called it "lawsuit mining."
Marcus Webb, a mid-level engineering manager in Seattle, was an early victim. "I woke up one morning to find I had 47 separate lawsuits pending against me in 13 different states. The damages claimed totaled over $2 million. Even if they were all garbage, just hiring lawyers to respond would have bankrupted me."
That's when FastLaw stepped in.
"Traditional courts move at the speed of paper," explained FastLaw CEO Jack Harper. "We move at the speed of code. Our system can evaluate a claim, cross-reference evidence, and render a binding decision in minutes instead of months. More importantly, we can detect patterns of abuse that human judges might miss."
FastLaw's innovation wasn't just technological - it was philosophical. The system operated on what Harper called "optional coercion." Rather than relying on state power to enforce judgments, FastLaw leveraged network effects. Companies that accepted FastLaw's authority gained access to its API, which let them automatically flag users who had outstanding judgments against them.
"Suddenly, your Uber rides got more expensive. Your DoorDash deliveries had 'high-risk customer' surcharges. Your Airbnb bookings required double deposits," said Harper. "We didn't force anyone to comply - we just made non-compliance increasingly inconvenient."
The #LawsuitChallenge creators tried to game FastLaw too, but its AI could detect coordinated abuse patterns that would have slipped past human judges. More importantly, it could render decisions faster than new suits could be filed.
"The genius of FastLaw wasn't that it was perfectly fair," noted legal scholar Sarah Martinez. "It was that it was just fair enough, and incredibly fast. When someone can file 50 lawsuits in an afternoon, you need a system that can dismiss them just as quickly."
Traditional courts still existed, but increasingly they became a last resort rather than a first option. Why wait months for a hearing when FastLaw could resolve your dispute in hours? Why pay lawyers when algorithms could evaluate evidence for free?
"We didn't set out to replace the justice system," Harper insisted. "We just wanted to solve a specific problem: weaponized litigation. But once people saw how efficient algorithmic justice could be, they started using FastLaw for everything from contract disputes to divorce settlements."
The final irony? Mia Velazquez, whose viral video had helped create the crisis FastLaw solved, eventually found herself permanently flagged in the system. "Now I can't even get a pizza delivered without paying extra fees," she complained in her last TikTok. "The algorithm says I'm a 'vexatious litigant.' Whatever that means."
The video got 50,000 views. Far fewer than her lawsuit tutorial - but then again, copying her new content would be pointless. FastLaw's AI was already watching.