Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, reached a settlement Monday in a social media addiction lawsuit to resolve claims before the case was set to go to trial this month, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The teenage plaintiffs, identified in court documents as SJ and KDB, had alleged in the lawsuit that Snapchat was designed to be addictive and that using the platform from a young age contributed to their mental health issues.
“We are pleased to reach the resolution for our clients,” Mark Lanier, founder of the Lanier Law Firm and lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement to CBS News. “We believe this jury would have found the companies’ conduct reprehensible.”
Snap was the latest social media company named in the lawsuit to settle the case, which opened for arguments this week. Meta settled claims last weekwhile Alphabet and TikTok, the other defendants, have each also settled the charges.
Terms of the Snap settlement were not disclosed, according to Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan and attorney Emily Jeffcott, litigation counsel for KDB
In a statement to CBS News, Snap said that “the parties are happy to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.”
The suit was one of several bellwether cases brought by plaintiffs who claimed social media platforms harmed their mental health and were designed to keep young users hooked.
In one Landmark decision earlier this year, a jury found Meta and Google-owned YouTube liable and awarded $6 million to the lead plaintiff.
Meta also agreed to pay up 17.1 billion dollars and adding child safety measures to its social media platforms as part of an August settlement with dozens of US states. The states accuse Meta of deliberately designing its platforms to be addictive and misleading users and the public about the risks of the technology.