Snapchat reaches settlement in case after teens allege platform designed to
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Snapchat parent Snap Inc. has reached a settlement during a trial over claims brought by two teenagers who say the company designed the platform to be addictive, causing their depression, anxiety and eating disorders, attorneys for the plaintiffs said on Monday.
Jury selection began last week for the trial, the second in Los Angeles state court over claims brought by young people who say they became addicted to social media after Snap, Meta Platforms, TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use.
The plaintiffs had previously settled with Meta, TikTok and YouTube.
“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,” John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, trial attorneys for plaintiff K.D.B., said in a statement.
The trial was set to be the first for Snap in the sweeping litigation over social media’s impact on teens, after the company settled the other cases that had been scheduled for trial. The company’s chief executive, Evan Spiegel, had been expected to testify.
The case had been selected from thousands of pending lawsuits as a bellwether intended to test the claims against Snap and the other companies and potentially influence how similar cases are resolved. The next bellwether trials are scheduled to begin in March, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Companies like Snapchat have rejected claims that their platforms are designed to be addictive. The next bellweather trials over social media’s impact on teens are expected to begin in March. (Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters)
A Snap spokesperson said in a statement that the company has built safeguards, launched safety tutorials and partnered with experts, and remains committed to “continually strengthening the safety, privacy, and well-being of our community.”
Plaintiffs 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.
Meta agreed to a $16.68-billion US settlement over claims it designed its social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to children. The settlement was reached Wednesday during a California federal trial. Tech analyst and journalist…
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