TikTok settles with US teenager ahead of social media addiction trial

SAN FRANCISCO - TikTok settled a lawsuit with a teenager just weeks before the company was set to go to trial in a second landmark case over whether social media companies are responsible for the harms their products might cause.

The 15-year-old Florida teenager, identified only by his initials R.K.C., has accused four social media companies of harming his mental health and previously reached a settlement agreement with YouTube on June 23.

This leaves only Meta and Snapchat as defendants in the trial, which is scheduled to begin July 27 in Los Angeles.

“We can confirm that a settlement in principle has been reached with TikTok,” law firm Morgan & Morgan, which represents the teenager, told AFP on July 1 without specifying the terms.

TikTok also previously settled a similar case, the first of its kind, in January before the trial started.

This second trial, to be held in a Los Angeles courtroom, is considered another benchmark for how thousands of social media addiction lawsuits could play out in the United States.

The Florida teenager claims that years of compulsive social media use contributed to severe psychological disorders – anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts – for which he is still receiving treatment.

“These social media companies have been strategizing for years to hook children early and maximise their usage with insidious features like autoplay and infinite scroll, all with the aim of increasing profits at the expense of the mental health of our youth,” the plaintiff’s attorneys at Morgan & Morgan said in a statement, after settling with YouTube.

In March, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google, YouTube’s parent company, to pay the young woman known as K.G.M. US$6 million (S$7.7 million).

TikTok and Snap both settled before the trial without any admission of liability.

In May, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube agreed to pay about US$27 million to a school district in Kentucky to avoid a trial. That case was also seen as a test for around 1,200 other lawsuits from school districts nationwide.

In a separate case that could go to trial in August in Oakland, more than thirty US states are suing Meta over similar allegations. AFP