Meta has settled with an 18-year-old Mississippi plaintiff who accused the company of designing addictive social media apps that harmed her mental health, leaving Snapchat’s parent company as the only defendant expected to face the upcoming trial.
“We remain 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,” Emily Jeffcott, a Morgan & Morgan attorney representing the teen, said in a statement reported by Reuters.
The agreement, announced Friday, Oct. 30, concerns a young woman identified as K.D.B. and follows Meta’s earlier settlement with a second plaintiff, S.J., a 16-year-old from Illinois. Jury selection began Wednesday in Los Angeles state court; both teens had already settled their claims against TikTok and YouTube.
Bloomberg Law reported that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl said the court learned of the latest settlement Thursday night. The agreement means Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will not take the stand in this trial.
The settlement terms were not disclosed, CBS News reported. The agreement resolves the teen’s claims against Meta rather than producing a jury verdict deciding whether the company caused her alleged injuries.
The plaintiffs say they developed compulsive habits after starting to use social media as children, blaming features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling. Their allegations connect those habits with mental health struggles and disordered eating; the companies reject claims that they deliberately designed their platforms to addict young users.
Related: 20-Year-Old Suing Social Media Companies Speaks Out About Devastating Addiction
That distinction matters for families following the case. A settlement is a concrete legal development, but it does not establish that every child’s experience with social media has the same cause or outcome.
The case was selected from thousands of pending lawsuits as a test of the allegations. A verdict could influence how companies and plaintiffs handle similar claims, Reuters reported, even though Meta will no longer be defending these two teens’ claims at this trial.
“We will continue to defend ourselves in court, and we stand by our record,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. The company also pointed to its work building safety tools for young users over more than a decade.
Snap has disputed the allegations, too. In an Oct. 28 statement to ABC News, before Meta’s latest settlement, a company spokesperson said Snapchat opens to a camera rather than a feed and argued that the allegations misrepresent both the plaintiffs’ experiences and the platform’s design.
For parents, the courtroom developments offer a reason to revisit everyday habits without waiting for another verdict. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screen-free meals and bedtimes, device time limits and regular conversations about what children enjoy — or find upsetting — online.
The academy also encourages parents to examine their own screen habits, use strong privacy settings and watch for media use crowding out sleep, healthy eating, physical activity or friendships. It advises families concerned about a child’s social media use or mental health to speak with their pediatrician.
Those conversations do not settle the legal questions. They give families something useful to do now: protect time together, listen closely and make sure children know they can ask for help.
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