Meta Platforms and Snap have settled lawsuits brought by two plaintiffs who claimed social media platforms damaged their mental health as minors, according to Top Class Actions.
The settlements ended a bellwether trial, a test case meant to help shape thousands of similar U.S. lawsuits alleging that platform design, not just user behaviour, drives youth social-media addiction.
The case consolidated claims from two plaintiffs: S.J., an Illinois teenager who said she began using Snapchat as a young child and developed compulsive-use patterns, depression, anxiety, an eating disorder and suicidal thoughts, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi who made similar allegations against Instagram and Snapchat.
Filed in 2023, the lawsuits argued that features including endless scrolling and Snapchat's "Snapstreaks" were designed to encourage compulsive use.
Both plaintiffs had already settled separately with TikTok and YouTube, and S.J. had settled with Meta before Meta reached a further settlement with K.D.B. in late October.
Snap settled with both plaintiffs two days before opening statements were due, with jury selection already underway and the trial projected to run into mid-December.
Terms of both settlements are confidential, and neither established public damages or an admission of wrongdoing.
The trial might have put Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel as a witness, and could have delivered one of the first courtroom tests of whether platform design itself causes youth addiction, a question that now returns to thousands of pending claims against the companies.
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