Meta Settles Social Media Addiction Case, Avoiding Trial
Meta on Friday settled its latest lawsuit over child social media addiction that was headed to trial, delaying its ongoing legal battle amid a string of recent setbacks.The case, brought by an 18-year-old Mississippi woman and set to go to trial in Los Angeles Superior Court next week, was the fourth of nine bellwether personal injury lawsuits against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap over claims the companies’ products are addictive like cigarettes.YouTube and TikTok also settled similar claims with the Mississippi teenager, identified only by her initials as K.D.B., leaving Snap as the lone company expected to defend itself in court.The bellwether cases were picked by a California Superior Court judge from thousands of similar lawsuits and could lead to large financial penalties and settlements for the tech companies.
They also test a novel legal theory that social media features like infinite scroll and algorithmic feeds can cause personal injury.Meta and YouTube lost the first case in March, filed by a young California woman identified as K.G.M., who accused the companies of negligence and personal injury for their addictive features.A jury found the companies liable of harming her with the design of their platforms and awarded her $6 million in damages.
Two of the other cases against Meta were dropped.Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, has faced a series of payouts in recent months amid lawsuits over claims of harms to children and privacy abuses.In August, Meta reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S.territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties for harm caused by its platforms.
Texas received an additional $1 billion to settle similar claims.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all...