Meta Platforms has settled with both social media addiction plaintiffs who were set to face the company at trial in Los Angeles next week, resolving the case before a jury ever heard opening statements. The settlement means Snap Inc. is now the only defendant left standing in a lawsuit that had been scheduled to test whether platform design features like infinite scroll and algorithmic feeds can cause real personal injury to young users.
According to Bloomberg Law, Meta reached the agreement with both plaintiffs who were set to go to trial in Los Angeles next week, and after the settlement, Snap is the only defendant remaining in the proceeding. The deal also means Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will not be called to testify, since Bloomberg Law reports the agreement will keep him from taking the stand. The move follows a similar pattern reported by The New York Times, which described the resolution as another delay in Meta's ongoing legal battle amid a string of recent setbacks.
One of the plaintiffs, identified by the initials K.D.B., is an 18-year-old woman from Mississippi. Per ABC News, K.D.B. claimed her compulsive use of Snapchat and Instagram contributed to depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. The other plaintiff, S.J., had previously settled similar claims against TikTok and YouTube, according to Claims Journal, which also reported that K.D.B. had reached earlier settlements with those same two platforms.
What the Lawsuits Actually Allege
The case was the fourth of nine bellwether personal injury lawsuits selected to move forward out of thousands of similar claims, according to the Times. Those bellwether cases involve Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, and a California Superior Court judge chose them from among thousands of pending lawsuits to test how the litigation might unfold more broadly. The plaintiffs have alleged the companies' products are addictive, comparing them to cigarettes, and Claims Journal's report notes that autoplay, infinite scroll and other features drove them to compulsive use, resulting in depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Meta has pushed back hard on the underlying claims. We disagree with these allegations and will defend ourselves in court, the company told ABC News. The trial judge overseeing the broader litigation also rejected arguments that Section 230 shields the platforms from these design-based claims, according to investing.com, which reported that the judge disagreed that the federal law bars claims over how the sites are designed.
A Sprawling Legal Fight Across the Country
The Los Angeles cases are just one piece of a much larger legal reckoning. Insurance Journal reports the cases are among more than 3,000 lawsuits brought by individuals and others that have been consolidated in Los Angeles Superior Court, with more than 3,800 additional lawsuits brought by states, school districts and individuals pending in federal court in California. The scale of the litigation reflects growing public concern about youth and social media: a Pew Research Center survey found that 48% of teens say these sites have a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022, while 45% say they spend too much time on social media, up from 36%.
Earlier bellwether proceedings have already produced significant verdicts. A Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in the first related personal-injury trial, awarding a young woman $6 million in damages, Claims Journal reported. Bloomberg Law's account of that same trial described the judgment differently, reporting that a plaintiff identified as K.G.M. won a $4.2 million judgment against Meta and a $1.8 million judgment against Google. TikTok and Snap, which were also named as defendants in that earlier case, settled ahead of the trial, according to the Los Angeles Times, while Google and Meta said at the time that they planned to appeal.
A Pattern of Settling Before the Jury Decides
TikTok has followed a similar strategy elsewhere, with the Los Angeles Times reporting the company was finalizing agreements to settle three upcoming trials over claims that its video product was addictive and harmful to minors, though the settlement amounts were not disclosed. A separate outlet tracking the October proceedings, settlementinsight.com, emphasized that these are individual lawsuits, not a class action with a fund, meaning each case is resolved on its own terms rather than through a shared settlement pool.
Meta's settlement with K.D.B. and S.J. also comes months after the company resolved a much larger set of government claims. Bloomberg Law reported that in August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve claims from state attorneys general, while The Hill described the same deal as an $18 billion settlement involving 47 states, three territories and the District of Columbia. The California Attorney General's office, however, has described its own settlement with Meta differently: a press release from the California Department of Justice characterized the deal as a proposed $17 billion settlement that remains subject to court approval through entry of a consent judgment.
Federal health officials have also weighed in on the broader question underlying the litigation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has stated through the surgeon general's office that it cannot conclude social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents, and it has outlined steps meant to mitigate the risk of harm. With Meta now out of the Los Angeles trial and Snap left to defend itself alone, the case stands as one more test of whether that broader safety question can be answered in a courtroom rather than settled behind closed doors.
