Snap has reached a settlement with two teenagers who said they became addicted to its apps, according to DI. The pair, from Illinois and Mississippi, had also previously settled with Meta, TikTok and YouTube. The agreement means Snap's chief executive, Evan Spiegel, did not have to take the stand this week, and the company avoided what would have been its first courtroom trial over how Snapchat affects young people.
The two young people started using YouTube at the age of three and other apps by the time they were nine, Reuters reported, as cited by DI. Their case was one of thousands of similar claims and had been singled out by the Supreme Court of California as a representative example.
John Morgan, the lawyer representing the young people, said in a statement that the aim is to make social media companies answerable for the effect their conduct has had on millions of children in the country, DI reports.
Why it matters
The settlement keeps the most closely watched of these cases out of a courtroom, at least for now. It also adds Snap to the list of major platforms that have chosen to resolve claims rather than defend their design choices before a jury.
The wider stakes are considerable. Social media firms are facing thousands of lawsuits over how their apps affect minors, according to DI. Alongside private individuals and public authorities, 30 states have brought suits against the tech giants, per a tally by CBS cited in the reporting.
The pressure is not only legal. In August, Meta agreed settlements worth up to $18 billion after 48 US state attorneys general accused the company of deliberately building its apps to hook children and teenagers, DI reports. As part of that deal, Meta introduced changes intended to protect younger users, including a default limit of two hours of use per day.
A test case chosen from thousands
The California Supreme Court selected the teenagers' claim from a large pool of comparable suits, giving it weight beyond the two individuals involved. That made the prospect of a trial significant: a verdict could have set expectations for how similar disputes are handled.
There is already a marker of how such a jury might rule. In March, Meta and YouTube lost the first case of this kind in the state, when a jury awarded $6 million in damages to a young woman, according to DI.
Snap, for its part, denies the allegations. The company says it has taken steps to make its apps safe places where young people can express themselves, DI reports. The settlement does not amount to an admission, and the terms were not disclosed in the reporting.
The company's decision to settle also spared it a public airing of internal detail that a trial would have brought. Spiegel had been due to testify in court this week, and the agreement removed that appearance.
A pattern of deals, not verdicts
The sequence now looks familiar. Meta, TikTok and YouTube settled with the same two young people before Snap did, meaning the group of platforms named in the original claim has now resolved it without a full trial against any of them.
That does not mean the legal pressure is easing. The volume of pending cases remains large, and state-level actions sit alongside private claims. The August Meta settlements showed that regulators and attorneys general are willing to extract both money and product changes, and the two-hour default limit is one example of what such deals can produce.
For Snap, the immediate effect is that a case chosen as a showcase will not produce a ruling. Whether that reduces or merely postpones scrutiny of app design is an open question. The company's denial of the claims means its position on the substance is unchanged, even as the dispute itself is closed.
What to watch next is whether other selected cases proceed to trial, and whether the terms of this agreement become public through later filings. The March verdict against Meta and YouTube, and the scale of the August Meta settlements, give the clearest indication so far of how courts and states are treating allegations about youth addiction.
