On the eve of trial, TikTok has settled a lawsuit filed against it and three other social media platforms by a 19-year-old woman who alleges the online forums are addictive and harmful to teens and children, an attorney said Tuesday.
The woman, identified in court documents only as K.G.M., “reached an agreement in principle to settle her case,” her attorney, Joseph VanZandt, told Reuters, which broke news of the settlement.
No terms of the settlement were announced.
K.G.M. also sued Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, along with Meta — parent of Instagram — and Google-run YouTube. Snap settled its portion of the case last week, but details of that settlement were also not publicly released.
The trial in Los Angeles Superior Court is expected to proceed as scheduled this week with Meta and Google as the remaining defendants. Industry observers have said the trial is being closely watched as test case for hundreds of other similar pending lawsuits.
The cases all generally allege various damages from what attorneys call addictive social media platforms powered by “complex algorithms designed to exploit human psychology.”
“In recent years, there has been growing concern about the impact of digital technologies, particularly social media, on the mental health and wellbeing of adolescents,” one of the hundreds of L.A. lawsuits contends. “Many researchers argue that defendants’ social media products facilitate cyberbullying, contribute to obesity and eating disorders, instigate sleep deprivation to achieve around-the-clock platform engagement, encourage children to negatively compare themselves to others, and develop a broad discontentment for life. They have been connected to depression, anxiety, self-harm, and ultimately suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and completed suicide.”