Amid a wave of lawsuits filed against social networks in the United States, its parent company Snap has so far consistently reached an out-of-court settlement before the hearing, thereby avoiding the first bellwether trial in Los Angeles which, in March, ended with an unprecedented verdict against Meta and YouTube (Google).
Jury selection began on Wednesday and the proceedings, due to begin on November 4, are expected to run until mid-December. Snap and Meta may still choose to settle before the verdict.
The heads of Meta and Snap, Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel, are expected on the witness stand in mid-November, along with Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The plaintiffs accuse the platforms of being designed to render users dependent, at the cost of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm. S.J., 16, from Illinois, settled with Meta and is pursuing only Snap; K.D.B., 18, from Mississippi, targets both groups.
Their cases are expected to serve as benchmarks for resolving thousands of consolidated lawsuits before the California courts.
Snapchat “opens to the camera, not to a feed,” and these accusations “fundamentally distort” the plaintiffs’ experience, a Snap spokesperson told AFP.
“A teenager’s mental health is shaped by many factors,” Meta argued, noting that the plaintiff “used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook.”
Each Has Its Strategy
In March, the first Los Angeles jury awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old woman, K.G.M., judging Meta’s and YouTube’s negligence to be partly responsible for her troubles. Judge Carolyn Kuhl, who also presides over this second trial, upheld the verdict in June; the two groups appealed.
Since then, the four targeted platforms have taken different paths. Grudgingly, YouTube has begun to settle: it reached an out-of-court agreement with S.J. and K.D.B. before this trial. The same goes for TikTok, which has so far consistently avoided juries and again agreed to pay at least $100 million to Alabama by the end of September to dodge a first public appearance before the courts.
Meta, the main target of these lawsuits, has also begun settling in some cases. The group has thus secured a major agreement with nearly all American states, and last week with S.J., for a confidential amount, according to her lawyers.
Pressure from American States
The agreement Meta reached with the attorneys general at the end of August, promising more than $18 billion in penalties along with new restrictions for teenagers on Instagram and Facebook, has increased pressure on its rivals: a portion of the payment is contingent upon TikTok, YouTube and Snap adopting similar restrictions.
In settling with Alabama, TikTok also agreed to a daily two-hour limit and a nighttime block for minors, close to the measures consented to by Meta.
While many countries seek to regulate — or even ban (Australia, Indonesia) — teenagers’ use of social networks, U.S. lawsuits target the platforms’ addictive design and their allegedly deceptive practices. As in March, the plaintiffs again attack Snapchat’s streaks or Instagram’s “likes,” not the content, which U.S. law largely exempts platforms from liability for.
In Oakland, near San Francisco, a separate federal proceeding brings together thousands of other complaints from families and schools. The four groups chose to settle collectively for $27 million in May to avoid a first trial brought by a Kentucky school district.
Another district is set to face them before a jury in February 2027, unless an out-of-court settlement is reached beforehand.
