TikTok Settles Lawsuit Over Social Media Addiction on Eve of Trial

Snapchat’s owners reached a similar settlement in the same lawsuit last week, leaving Google and Meta as the remaining defendants in the first social media addiction case to go before a jury.

The first social media addiction trial began this week in California, involving claims that major platforms use algorithms and bait users with engagement in a way that leads to mental health problems, especially for young people. However, two of the main defendants named in the complaint have now reached settlement agreements to resolve their portion of any liability, including SnapChat last week and TikTok this week.

The case was brought by a California woman identified as K.G.M., who alleges that TikTok, Meta, Snap and Google knowingly designed their platforms in ways that encouraged compulsive use and failed to protect young users from foreseeable mental health harms.

K.G.M.’s lawsuit claims the companies prioritized engagement and user retention over safety, exposing young users to increased risks of anxiety, depression and other psychological injuries.

Last week, a Snapchat settlement was announced, and jury selection began on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court for the remaining defendants. However, the case will now move forward without TikTok, after the company reached a similar social media addiction settlement with the plaintiff, removing itself from the case before the presentation of evidence began.

The K.G.M. case is part of a broader wave of social media addiction lawsuits filed across the country against companies such as Meta, Google, ByteDance and Snap, which collectively face more than 2,200 complaints alleging their platforms were intentionally engineered to drive compulsive use among children and teens.

Plaintiffs argue that algorithm-driven recommendation systems were designed to maximize engagement and time spent on the platforms, despite known risks of addiction and resulting mental health harms.

Most of the lawsuits have been filed by individuals and families seeking compensation for injuries such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and suicidal ideation. In separate actions, school districts and state governments are also pursuing claims, alleging they have been forced to absorb the rising costs of counseling services, crisis intervention programs and expanded educational resources tied to excessive social media use.

At the federal level, the majority of social media addiction lawsuits have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings as part of a multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, where coordinated discovery and expert challenges are ongoing.

While the K.G.M. case is proceeding independently in California state court, it represents the first time a jury will evaluate claims that social media platform design and recommendation systems contributed to addiction-related mental health injuries. Meta and Google remain as defendants in the case, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify at trial.

Federal Social Media Addiction Trials

The first federal teen social media addiction lawsuit bellwether trial is currently scheduled to begin this summer, according to Judge Rogers, and will focus on claims brought by school districts alleging they were forced to fund mental health treatment, tutoring and intervention programs in response to the youth mental health crisis.

These bellwether trials are meant to serve as early test cases that will give the parties an opportunity to see how juries are likely to digest evidence and testimony which would be repeated in most cases if they went to trial.

Following these early cases, if the parties are unable to reach a settlement agreement, thousands of claims could be remanded back to their originating district for individual trial dates.

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