Meta settles with second plaintiff during trial over social media addiction

Meta settled a social media addiction lawsuit with an 18-year-old plaintiff on Friday, avoiding its next bellwether trial , which began jury selection this week.

The case, filed by a woman from Mississippi dubbed “K.D.B.,” alleged her use of Instagram and Snapchat as a child worsened her mental health and contributed to her eating disorder, suicidal thoughts, depression and self-harm.

K.D.B.’s case against Meta and Snap was consolidated with another plaintiff named S.J.’s claims against the company. Their legal teams argue the platforms intentionally designed their platforms to be addictive to young users.

In settling the case, Meta will avoid sitting through another high-profile trial during which CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, were expected to testify. Zuckerberg and Mosseri testified in previous trials over similar claims.

The trial will still move forward next week against Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, the plaintiffs’ attorneys confirmed.

Like K.D.B., S.J. is a teenager from Illinois who said she started using Snapchat at a young age, accessing features like “Snapstreaks” and “Snapscore” along with filters and push notifications.

Her suit alleges the features played a role in her compulsive use of Snapchat and contributed to her depression, eating disorder, anxiety and harm.

S.J. also settled her claims with Meta last week.

Emily Jeffcott, a Morgan & Morgan attorney representing K.D.B., said in a statement Friday the team remains “committed to improving safety for kids on social media apps and holding tech companies accountable, and we are pleased to have brought this matter to a just resolution on behalf of our client.”

A spokesperson for Meta said “trials, dismissals and settlements are all common in the bellwether process, and this litigation is no exception.”

Jury selection began this week and continued Friday. Jury selection is expected to continue Monday and Tuesday, followed by opening arguments the next day. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is expected to testify, which will mark his first trial testimony.

Snap did not comment on the settlement news Friday.

Ahead of the trial’s start earlier this week, a Snapchat spokesperson said the company was “built differently” from traditional social media platforms, arguing the claims “fundamentally misrepresent the plaintiffs’ experiences” on the platform.

Snapchat “opens to a camera, not a feed, not a ranking of what other people post or other social comparison metrics,” the spokesperson said. “We have built safeguards into the platform, introduced safety tools and educational resources, and we believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first.”

In August, Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement for similar claims, ending a high-profile trial that was already underway in California. The settlement involved 47 U.S. states, three territories and the District of Columbia after Meta said it approached “nearly every state” to collaborate on a safety framework.

Meta also agreed to pay Texas more than $1 billion over similar allegations .

Along with the payments, the company also agreed to set default daily time limits of two hours for users younger than 18 that can only be lifted by a parent, and it introduced blocks during the nighttime and blocked notifications during school hours.

Meta’s spokesperson touted this agreement in a statement Friday. “We’ve spent more than a decade building protections for teens,” the spokesperson said, adding, “We hope the rest of our industry joins us in setting this new standard.”