Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, has settled with two teenagers in the middle of a trial in Los Angeles state court, Reuters reported. The plaintiffs' attorneys announced the deal on Monday. The teens claim Snap designed its platform to be addictive. They say this caused their depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Jury selection began last week. It was the second trial in Los Angeles state court brought by young people who say they became hooked on social media. They accuse Snap, Meta Platforms, TikTok and Alphabet's YouTube of designing their platforms to encourage compulsive use. The two plaintiffs had already settled with Meta, TikTok and YouTube.
The plaintiffs are S.J., a 16-year-old girl from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi. According to Reuters, they say they started using YouTube as early as age three and the other platforms at around age nine. They blame features such as autoplay and infinite scroll for their compulsive habits.
John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, trial attorneys for K.D.B., said their goal is to hold social media companies accountable for the impact on millions of children across the US. They said the settlements let them keep building toward that goal. A Snap spokesperson said the company has built safeguards, launched safety tutorials and partnered with experts. The spokesperson said Snap remains committed to strengthening the safety, privacy and well-being of its users. The companies reject claims that their platforms were designed to addict young people.
The case was set to be Snap's first trial in the wider litigation, after the company settled other cases scheduled for trial. Chief executive Evan Spiegel had been expected to testify. The case was picked from thousands of pending lawsuits as a bellwether. Such test cases can shape how similar claims are resolved. The next bellwether trials are due to start in March, according to the plaintiffs' lawyers.
Social media firms face thousands of lawsuits in US federal and state courts. Individuals, school districts, municipalities and government bodies say the companies knowingly tried to addict children. In the first case to reach trial, which ended in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent. It awarded a young woman $6 million in damages. In August, Meta struck settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every US state and territory. That deal made $5 billion of the payout conditional on the states reaching similar settlements with Snap, TikTok and YouTube.