Snap settles teens' lawsuit over claims Snapchat encouraged addiction

Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. has settled a lawsuit brought by two teenagers who alleged that the platform was deliberately designed to encourage addiction and contributed to their depression, anxiety and eating disorders. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs announced the agreement on Monday, November 2.

Jury selection had started the previous week in Los Angeles state court. The proceedings marked the second trial involving young people who accused Snap, Meta Platforms, TikTok and Alphabet's YouTube of building services that promoted compulsive use. The two plaintiffs had already reached settlements with Meta, TikTok and YouTube.

The case would have been Snap's first trial in the broader litigation over social media's impact on teenagers, following settlements in other cases scheduled for trial. Chief executive Evan Spiegel had been expected to testify. Selected from thousands of pending lawsuits, the case was intended to test the allegations and potentially help shape the resolution of similar disputes. Plaintiffs' lawyers said the next such bellwether trials are scheduled to start in March.

The plaintiffs are S.J., a 16-year-old girl from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi. They said their use of YouTube began as early as age three and that they started using the other platforms around age nine. They attributed compulsive habits to features including autoplay and infinite scroll. K.D.B.'s trial lawyers, John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, said the settlements would support their continuing effort to hold social media companies accountable for their effects on children.

The companies dispute allegations that they designed their platforms to addict young users and say they have worked to make their apps safe spaces for expression. A Snap spokesperson pointed to safeguards, safety tutorials and partnerships with experts, saying the company remained committed to improving its community's safety, privacy and well-being.

Thousands of related lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts by individuals, school districts, municipalities and other government bodies. They allege that companies knowingly pursued children's addiction to their services, contributing to a youth mental health crisis involving anxiety, depression and suicide. Court records show that around 30 states have sued the companies.

The first case to reach trial concluded in March, when a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent and awarded a young woman US$6 million. The next two teenagers selected for trials either settled or withdrew their claims. The first school district selected for trial also settled with every company involved.

Separately, Meta lost both phases of a New Mexico lawsuit in March and was ordered to pay US$375 million after a jury found it had misled consumers about platform safety. In August, the company reached settlements worth up to US$18 billion with nearly every state and U.S. territory over attorneys general's claims that its platforms harmed teenagers.

Those agreements included changes to Instagram and Facebook, including a commitment to limit teenagers' use to two hours daily for the next decade. A US$5 billion portion of the payout depended on states securing similar settlements with Snap, TikTok and YouTube.