Key facts
- Plaintiffs S.J., a 16-year-old from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, settled with Snap during trial.
- Attorneys John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott said the settlements let them keep pursuing accountability for children affected.
- Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel had been expected to testify before the settlement.
- The plaintiffs had previously settled with Meta, TikTok and Alphabet's YouTube.
- In the first case to reach trial, a Los Angeles jury in March found Meta and YouTube negligent and awarded $6 million.
- In August, Meta struck settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every state and US territory over harm to teens.
Snap Inc reached a settlement during a Los Angeles trial over claims by two teenagers that the company designed Snapchat to be addictive, causing their depression, anxiety and eating disorders, attorneys for the plaintiffs said on Monday, November 2.
Jury selection began the previous week. The plaintiffs, S.J., a 16-year-old girl from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, said 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. They had previously settled with Meta, TikTok and Alphabet's 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," attorneys John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, representing K.D.B. at trial, said in a statement.
A Snap spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 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 scheduled for trial. Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel had been expected to testify.
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, 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, and 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. As part of those deals, the company agreed to make changes to how Instagram and Facebook work for teens. The deal conditioned $5 billion of the payout on the states reaching similar settlements with Snap, TikTok and YouTube.