Meta settles with teen in mental health lawsuit
On Friday, attorneys announced that Meta Platforms has reached a settlement with a teenage girl who alleged the company’s design of Instagram and Facebook led to her addiction, mental health issues, and disordered eating. This agreement followed the start of jury selection on Wednesday for a trial involving two teens, S.J. and K.D.B., who had sued Meta and Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat. Meta had previously settled with S.J. just before the trial, and Friday’s resolution with K.D.B. means the trial will now focus solely on Snap.
K.D.B. Settlement Leaves Snap as Sole Defendant in Trial
“We remain committed to improving safety for kids on social media apps and holding tech companies accountable, and we are pleased to have brought this matter to a just resolution on behalf of our client,” said Emily Jeffcott, K.D.B.’s attorney, in a statement. The trial is the second in the Los Angeles state court over claims brought by young people who say they became addicted to social media after Meta, Snap, TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use. Both S.J. and K.D.B. had earlier settled with TikTok and YouTube. Selected as a test case from thousands of pending lawsuits, the trial’s outcome could shape how similar cases are resolved between companies and plaintiffs.
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S.J., a 16-year-old from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, claim they started using YouTube as young as age 3 and other platforms around age 9, developing addictive behaviors they attribute to features like autoplay and infinite scroll. The companies deny designing their platforms to be addictive and assert they have implemented measures to ensure young users can safely express themselves.
Meta and Other Platforms Face Widespread Legal Scrutiny
Social media companies are embroiled in thousands of federal and state lawsuits filed by individuals, school districts, municipalities, and government bodies. These cases allege the companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict children, exacerbating a youth mental health crisis marked by anxiety, depression, and suicide. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in the first trial, awarding a young woman $6 million in damages. The next two teen cases selected for trial were either settled or withdrawn.
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The first school district set for trial reached settlements with all involved companies. In August, Meta struck settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every state and US territory to resolve lawsuits brought by attorneys general over the platforms’ harm to teens and agreed to make changes to how Instagram and Facebook work for teens. As part of the agreement, Meta pledged to modify how Instagram and Facebook operate for teenage users. Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay a $25-billion penalty after a jury found the company misled Facebook users about the privacy of their data and how it handles hate speech. Meta has stated it will appeal the decision.
