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Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, reached a confidential settlement Monday with two plaintiffs who accuse four major social media companies of contributing to mental health problems they suffered as teenagers. The deal came ahead of a trial set to start Wednesday, with jury selection already underway.
Snap was the last defendant remaining in the bellwether case, a test case whose outcome can signal how similar lawsuits may unfold, according to Courthouse News Service, a legal news outlet.
The plaintiffs are identified in court as S.J., a female minor, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old woman. They are among more than 2,000 people who claim platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok left them addicted to their phones, fueling depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia, a condition marked by obsessive concern over perceived flaws in one’s appearance.
“Families shouldn’t have to go jury by jury to solve a problem this big,” plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier said in a written statement. “What these teenagers need is a permanent fix, real design changes that protect kids, not case-by-case patches. Until that happens, we will keep trying these cases.”
Snap said in a statement that the parties were “pleased to have been able to resolve this matter amicably.”
The company also said Snapchat was built to encourage conversations among friends and that it has introduced safeguards, safety tutorials and partnerships with experts. It added that it remains committed to strengthening users’ safety, privacy and well-being.
Meta, Google and TikTok, the other defendants in the case, had already reached confidential settlements with the two plaintiffs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel had been scheduled to testify at the trial.
The first bellwether trial, held earlier this year, ended with a jury awarding plaintiff Kaley G.M. $6 million in damages on her claims against Meta and Google. She had earlier settled her claims against Snap and TikTok. Meta and Google have appealed the verdict.
Another bellwether plaintiff, identified in court as R.K.C., settled with Google, TikTok and Snap, then dropped claims against Meta days before trial.
The next trials in the consolidated litigation, the combined set of related cases, are scheduled to begin in March 2027.
The lawsuits challenge the liability protections social media companies enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a U.S. law that generally shields online platforms from responsibility for content posted by third parties.
Plaintiffs argue the companies can still be held accountable for how their platforms are designed. They point to features such as likes, autoplay and infinite scrolling, or endless feeds, which they say encourage compulsive use among teenagers.
They have also targeted beauty filters, which are digital effects that alter a user’s appearance, on Instagram and Snapchat. They argue such features can contribute to or worsen body dysmorphia.
Separately, Snap faces a lawsuit filed by the parents of more than 75 teenagers who died from fentanyl overdoses. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid. The parents allege their children obtained drugs from dealers they met through Snapchat, which they describe as an “open-air drug market.”
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