YouTube, Snap and TikTok settle school district's social media addiction claims

(This May 15 story has been ‌repeated without any ​changes to ​the text)

By Diana Novak Jones and Nate Raymond

May 15 (Reuters) - Alphabet's YouTube, Snap and TikTok have reached settlements in the first case set for trial in litigation seeking to ‌force social media platforms to cover the costs school districts incur to combat ⁠a youth mental health crisis they say the companies fueled.

The settlements were detailed in court filings on Friday in federal ‌court in Oakland, California, and resolve ‌claims by a Kentucky school district that is still due to take Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms to trial on June 15.

Terms of the settlements with Breathitt County School District in ​rural Eastern Kentucky were not disclosed.

"This matter has been amicably resolved and our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on that promise," a YouTube spokesperson said ⁠in a statement.

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said it resolved the case amicably. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request ​for comment.

More than 3,300 lawsuits involving addiction claims are pending in California state court against the social media companies. Another 2,400 cases brought by individuals, municipalities, ​states and school districts have been centralized in California federal ‌court.

In a landmark trial, a Los Angeles jury on March 25 found Meta and Alphabet's Google negligent for designing social media platforms that are harmful to ⁠young people. It awarded a combined $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to social media as a child.

The companies have denied the allegations and say they take extensive steps to keep teens and ⁠young users safe on their platforms.

Breathitt is one of about 1,200 school districts suing the social media companies over ​claims they caused a mental health crisis among students and then saddled schools with the fallout.

The school district has been seeking over $60 million to cover the costs of counteracting social media's impact on students’ mental health and to ‌fund a 15-year mental health program to abate the problem.

It also seeks a court order requiring the companies to modify their platforms to reduce addictive ‌features.

Its case is a bellwether, or test case, for over a thousand similar school districts' lawsuits.

Judges and attorneys ⁠often use bellwether verdicts to assess the ‌potential value of remaining claims and ​guide settlement talks. Typically, several bellwether cases are tried before reaching a broader resolution.

(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by ‌Tom Hogue)

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