Days before a scheduled trial, social media company Snap has settled a lawsuit accusing the platform of creating social media addiction, according to multiple media reports.
The settlement was announced Tuesday in California Superior Court in Los Angeles County, according to the New York Times. The lawsuit against Snap was filed by a 19-year-old boy, known in court documents as KGM, who accused the social media app of designing algorithms and features that cause addiction and mental health problems.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
The lawsuit also names other platforms, including Meta, YouTube, and TikTok. No settlements have yet been reached with these platforms. Notably, Snap remains a defendant in a similar social media addiction lawsuit filed against the company.
According to documents revealed in the ongoing lawsuit, Snap employees have raised concerns about the risks to teens’ mental health dating back at least nine years. The company said the examples were “selected” and taken out of context.
Plaintiffs in these cases draw parallels with Big Tobacco, citing 1990s lawsuits against tobacco companies that concealed health risks, alleging that the platforms withheld information about potential harm from users. They claim that features like infinite scrolling, video autoplay, and algorithmic recommendations trick users into continuing to use the app, leading to depression, eating disorders, and self-harm, according to the NYT.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was scheduled to testify at the trial. It would have been the first time a social media company has appeared before a jury in an addiction lawsuit. No platform has yet lost a lawsuit of this type in court. The remaining lawsuits against Meta, TikTok, and YouTube are scheduled to proceed to jury selection next Monday, January 27, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg scheduled to take the witness stand.
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If the plaintiffs win, legal experts predict the lawsuit could lead to a multibillion-dollar settlement and force the platforms to redesign their products. But the companies have so far defended themselves in part by arguing that the same design choices, including algorithmic recommendations, push notifications and infinite scrolling, are similar to newspapers deciding which stories to publish and constitute speech protected by the First Amendment.
Snap did not respond to requests for comment.
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