Meta Settles Second Teen Addiction Case Before Los Angeles Trial

Meta Platforms has settled with a second US teenager who accused the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to encourage addictive use, her lawyers announced on Friday. The plaintiff, identified as K.D.B., said the platforms contributed to mental health problems and eating disorders.

The deal came after jury selection began on Wednesday in a Los Angeles trial that was meant to hear claims from two teenagers, identified by the initials S.J. and K.D.B., against Meta and Snap, the owner of Snapchat. Meta had already settled with the first plaintiff days before the trial opened, which means the case will now proceed against Snap alone. Both teens had earlier reached settlements with TikTok and YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet.

What the plaintiffs claimed

The two said they began using YouTube at around age three and joined the other platforms at about nine. They say they developed compulsive habits, which they blamed on features such as autoplay and infinite scroll. The companies reject the claim that their products were built to hook young users and say they have introduced measures to make their apps safer.

Amy Zeifcoat, the lawyer for K.D.B., said the legal team remains committed to improving child safety on social platforms and holding tech companies accountable, adding that her client was relieved by the settlement. A Meta spokesperson said settlements, dismissals and trials are all part of litigation in cases like these, that the company will keep defending itself in court, and that it has been developing safety tools for more than a decade.

Why it matters

The case is the second trial in Los Angeles over claims that social networks were designed to foster compulsive use. It was picked from thousands of pending lawsuits to serve as a test case, so a jury verdict could shape how companies and plaintiffs resolve similar claims.

In the first such case to reach trial, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for negligence in March and ordered them to pay a young woman $6 million. Since then, some cases chosen for trial have ended in settlements or dropped claims, and the first school district to go to trial settled with all the companies involved.

Meta's legal exposure remains broad. In August it agreed to settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly all US states and territories, and committed to changes in how Instagram and Facebook work for teen users. Earlier in October, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found it misled Facebook users about data privacy. The company said it will appeal.