TL;DRSnap, YouTube, and TikTok settled the first school district addiction trial. Only Meta heads to court on 12 June.
Snap, Google’s YouTube, and ByteDance’s TikTok have reached settlements in the first lawsuit brought by a public school district over claims that social media addiction has disrupted learning and forced schools to spend heavily on combating a youth mental health crisis. The settlements, filed on Friday in federal court in Oakland, California, leave Meta Platforms as the sole defendant heading to trial on 12 June.
The case was brought by Breathitt County School District, a small rural district in eastern Kentucky, more than 160 kilometres southeast of the state capital, Frankfort. It is designated a bellwether, meaning it is intended to be representative of the issues in more than 1,200 similar lawsuits filed by school districts across the United States. The outcome of the trial could set the terms for a broad settlement across the entire litigation.
Settlement terms were not disclosed in Friday’s filings. YouTube said the matter had been “amicably resolved” and that its focus remained on building age-appropriate products and parental controls. Snap said the parties were “pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.” TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawyers representing the school districts said their focus remained on pursuing justice for the remaining 1,200 districts that have filed cases.
