LOS ANGELES—After a tense lead-up to the latest high-profile social media harms trial, Snap Inc., developer of the popular app Snapchat, settled a bellwether lawsuit with two teenage plaintiffs before a California jury could hear the case.
The plaintiffs, identified in court documents as “S.J.,” a 16-year-old from Illinois, and “K.D.B.,” an 18-year-old from Mississippi, both claimed they were “heavy user[s]” of the defendants’ apps and quickly became addicted and suffered serious psychological harms as a result.
“We have settled with all of the defendants for both plaintiffs in this case,” Mark Lanier, attorney for plaintiffs on Monday morning told Judge Carolyn Kuhl of the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles.
Meta, Google, and TikTok were originally named defendants in the case but settled before Snap.
Representatives for Snap, Inc. did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times, and the terms of the settlement agreement were not disclosed.
“We are proud to have achieved justice for our bellwether clients so far, including K.D.B. and S.J. Our ultimate goal is to hold these social media companies accountable for how their actions have impacted millions of children across the country, and these settlements allow us to keep building toward that goal,” Emily Jeffcott, trial counsel for the plaintiff identified in court documents “K.D.B.,” said in a statement Monday.
In a case filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the plaintiffs alleged Snap and other social media giants intentionally engineered their products to be addictive to young users despite known risks.
It was the third case selected to test how thousands of related lawsuits—brought by children, parents, school districts, and attorneys general across the country—will be tried.
But before jury selection began last week, YouTube and TikTok settled with both plaintiffs, and Meta settled with one, leaving the focus largely on Snap for the first time. And on Friday, Meta announced it had settled with the second plaintiff, leaving Snap as the sole defendant.
The company has avoided the spectacle, disclosures, and public scrutiny of trial by settling the previous two bellwethers and other key cases before they could land before a jury.
The K.G.M. trial unveiled a cascade of internal documents and communications that plaintiffs say prove the companies knew the risks and designed their products to be maximally addictive to young users anyway.
Snapchat and TikTok settled with K.G.M. before trial. Just before a second bellwether was scheduled to go to trial over the summer, Snapchat, TikTok, and Google settled with the plaintiff, a teenage boy, who dropped his remaining claims against Meta.
Plaintiffs K.D.B. and S.J. accused both Meta and Snap of “aggressively” engineering their products to entrap and addict young users and cited Meta’s own research, showing, among other things, that 66 percent of teen girls and 46 percent of teen boys experience negative social comparisons on Instagram, and that Facebook makes body-image issues worse for one-third of girls.
Their lawsuit listed 13 causes of action, including negligence, product liability, and unfair trade practices, and identified Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging, short video feeds, image filters, and other unique features as encouraging problematic or addictive use.
