Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok have also agreed to settle the bellwether case brought by a Kentucky school district, while denying liability.
Meta and the parent companies of Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok have agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit accusing the social media platforms of contributing to mental health problems among students, Reuters has reported. The lawsuit, brought by a Kentucky school district, is one of many similar cases pending in US courts and is widely seen as a bellwether.
Reuters reported on Friday, citing settlement documents, that Meta Platforms, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, will pay $9 million as part of the agreement. Co-defendants Snap Inc and ByteDance previously agreed to pay $8 million each, while Alphabet agreed to pay slightly more than $2 million, according to the report.
The lawsuit was filed by the Breathitt County School District in Kentucky last Thursday, with the plaintiff initially seeking more than $60 million in damages. The district alleged that the companies deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to young users, contributing to problems, including anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
The settlement does not require the defendants to admit wrongdoing. The companies have said they are taking reasonable steps to address concerns about the impact of social media on young users, the news agency reported.
Meanwhile, some 1,200 school districts across the country have filed similar lawsuits against social media companies.
Those cases, along with lawsuits brought by individuals, municipalities, and states, have been consolidated in federal court in California, while another 3,300 cases remain pending in the state’s courts.
In a landmark verdict in March, a jury in California ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million and Google $1.8 million in a lawsuit by a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley. The plaintiff said she had developed an addiction to YouTube and Instagram as a child because of such design features as infinite scrolling.
Two other co-defendants, TikTok and Snap, settled the case before the trial began.
Meta Platforms have also faced growing regulatory pressure further afield, having been labeled an “extremist organization” in Russia in 2022 and targeted by multiple European Union actions, including a €797 million ($940 million) antitrust fine.
