TikTok agreed to settle the first in a series of closely-watched product liability lawsuits on Monday, bowing out on the eve of a landmark case that could highlight how the social media giants exploit their youngest users and leave the tech titans on the hook for billions in damages.
The settlement was reached as jury selection was set to begin in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday and comes a week after Snap reached a settlement with the same plaintiff, a woman from Chico, Calif., who said she became addicted to social media dating back to elementary school.
“This settlement shouldn’t come as a surprise because the shocking evidence is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, an industry watchdog. “This was just the first case – there are hundreds of parents and school districts in social media addiction trials starting today, and sadly, new families every day are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for their intentionally dangerous products.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The parties are pleased to have been able to resolve this matter amicably,” Snap spokeswoman Monique Bellamy said of the settlement.
The remaining defendants, Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube, are still facing allegations that their products are “unfair” and designed to keep children hooked on products their creators know are dangerous.
Those same arguments are at the heart of at least 2,500 lawsuits 10 pending in state and federal court. The Los Angeles case is among a handful of bellwethers aimed at clarifying unspecified legal territory.
Social media companies are protected by the First Amendment and Section 230, a decades-old law that shields internet companies from liability for what users generate and share on their platforms.
Attorneys for the Chico plaintiff, referred to in court papers as KGM, say the apps were designed and modified to trap young people and keep them on the platforms regardless of the dangers the companies knew lurked there, including sexual harassment, bullying and promoting self-harm and even suicide.
Jurors will be asked to analyze whether those risks are accidental or natural, and if social media companies can be held liable for the harm that families do from feeding their children.
Dozens of jurors crowded the beige terrazzo hallway outside Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl’s downtown courtroom Tuesday morning, most spending time on social media on their phones. Some watched short videos while others browsed their feeds, pausing every so often to click likes on posts.
Instagram is 15 years old, YouTube is almost 21. Finding Angelenos who are inexperienced in both is almost impossible. The case comes at a time when public opinion on social media has soured, with a growing feeling among parents, mental health professionals, lawmakers and children themselves that the apps are doing more harm than good.
Phones are now banned from public school classrooms in California. Many private schools set strict rules about when and how social media can be used.
In survey after survey, the majority of young users — among them the youngest Zoomers of the “Anxious Generation” and the oldest children of Gen Alpha’s iPad — now say they spend too much time on apps. A conflicting but growing body of research suggests that some component is addictive.
According to a survey last year by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, nearly half of teenagers say social media is bad for their peers, that it disrupts their sleep and hurts their productivity. About a quarter say it lowered their grades. And one in five say it has damaged their mental health.
Experts say social media has also helped increase the suicide rate among young girls, as well as the rise in eating disorders after the pandemic.
KGM, the first bellwether plaintiff, said he started watching YouTube when he was 6 years old, and was uploading content to the site when he was 8.
Today, about 85% of children under the age of 12 watch YouTube and half of those watch it every day, according to Pew.
At 9, according to the KGM case, he got his first iPhone and joined Instagram.
By the time she joined Snapchat at the age of 13, she was spending almost every hour scrolling, posting and agonizing over her marriage, despite bullying from peers, hateful comments from strangers, and sex slavery from older men.
“When I was in elementary school, I used to hide in the counselor’s office to — to go on my phone,” he said at a book launch last year.
Around that time, she said, Instagram began offering her content about self-harm and restrictive diets.
“I believe that social media, his addiction to social media has changed the way his brain works,” said the plaintiff’s mother, Karen, in a related file. He can’t live without a phone. He is willing to go to war if you can touch his phone.
“There was a time when he was so addicted that I couldn’t take the phone out of his hand,” he said.
KGM’s sister was even more blunt.
“Whenever my mother picked up her phone … she felt that someone had died,” said the sister. “He had a lot of confusion whenever his phone was taken away, and it was because he wouldn’t be able to use Instagram.”
“I wish I never took it out,” the plaintiff later told her sister, according to the letter. “I wish I never got it in the first place.”
Proponents of the lawsuit compare their quest to fight Big Tobacco and opioid maker Purdue.
“This is the beginning of the trial of our generation,” said Haworth, a tech industry watcher.
But the gap between public opinion and public litigation is wide, advocates for the forums say. Social media addiction is not an official diagnosis, and proving that it exists, and that companies are responsible for it, will be an uphill battle.
YouTube lawyers want to further complicate the picture by saying that their video sharing site is not a social media platform at all and will not be included among the likes of Instagram and TikTok.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say such separation is temporary, pointing out that YouTube has a very small group of users, many of whom say the platform was a gateway to the world of social media.
“I’m equally appalled … by the internal documents I’ve seen from all four of these defendants about their unknowing decision to use child pornography when they knew it would be bad for them,” said attorney Matthew Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center. “To me they are all angry at their decision to increase their profits over the safety of children.”
