Meta settles with teen during trial testing claims social media caused depression, eating disorders

By Diana Novak Jones

Oct 30 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms has settled with a teen plaintiff who accused the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive, causing her mental health problems and disordered eating, attorneys for the plaintiff said on Friday.

The settlement came after jury selection began on Wednesday for a trial that was slated to test the claims of two teens, identified as S.J. and K.D.B., against Meta and Snapchat parent Snap Inc. Meta had settled with S.J. days before the trial, so Friday’s settlement with K.D.B. means the trial is expected to proceed against Snap only.

“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,” Emily Jeffcott, an attorney for K.D.B., said in a statement.

The trial is the second in 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.

S.J. and K.D.B. had previously settled with TikTok and YouTube.

The case was selected among the thousands of pending lawsuits as a test case, so the jury’s verdict could influence how the companies and plaintiffs resolve similar cases.

S.J., a 16-year-old girl from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, say they began using YouTube as early as age 3 and the other platforms around age 9, developing compulsive habits they blame on features such as autoplay and infinite scroll. 

The companies have rejected claims their platforms were designed to addict young people, and say they have taken action to make the apps safe places for young people to express themselves. 

Social media companies face thousands of lawsuits in federal and state courts by individuals, school districts, municipalities and other government entities alleging the companies knowingly sought to addict children to their platforms, contributing to a youth mental health crisis involving anxiety, depression and suicide. 

In the first case to go to trial, which ended in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube had been negligent and awarded a young woman $6 million in damages.

The next two teens whose cases were selected for trials either settled or dropped their claims against the companies.

The first school district chosen for trial settled with all of the 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.

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. The company has said it will appeal.

(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis)

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