{"id":441934,"date":"2026-01-28T02:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T02:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441934\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T02:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T02:12:13","slug":"tiktok-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-ahead-of-trial-against-meta-youtube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441934\/","title":{"rendered":"TikTok settles social media addiction lawsuit ahead of trial against Meta, YouTube"},"content":{"rendered":"

TikTok has agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit on social media addiction, according to one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, the same day the trial was due to start against Meta and YouTube.<\/p>\n

Terms of the settlement reached in a California court on Tuesday, local time, were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

TikTok is one of four companies \u2014 including Meta, Snap and YouTube, which is a unit of Alphabet-owned Google \u2014 facing allegations that their platforms are fuelling a youth mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

Snap settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n

The case involves a 19-year-old from California, identified as KGM, who said she became addicted to the companies’ platforms at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design, according to court filings.<\/p>\n

She blames her depression and suicidal thoughts on the apps she used and is seeking to hold the companies that designed them responsible.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

YouTube, along with Meta, is facing trial over the social media addiction lawsuit. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n

KGM “reached an agreement in principle to settle her case” with TikTok, said Joseph VanZandt, a lawyer for KGM.<\/p>\n

TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for more details about the settlement.<\/p>\n

Snap settled with KGM on January 20. A Snap spokesperson and the plaintiff’s attorneys declined to provide details about that agreement.<\/p>\n

KGM’s case is one of three scheduled test cases, known as bellwether trials, chosen from hundreds of related lawsuits accusing the platforms of harming youth.<\/p>\n

The outcome of her lawsuit could help determine how the other cases are handled.<\/p>\n

Joseph VanZandt, co-lead counsel for the plaintiff, said in a statement on Tuesday that TikTok remained a defendant in the other personal injury cases, and that the trial would proceed as scheduled against Meta and YouTube.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify in the trial. (AP: Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez)<\/p>\n

The trial against the two social media giants was scheduled to begin with jury selection on Tuesday, local time, in the California Superior Court in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

It is the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms.<\/p>\n

US and China sign off on TikTok agreement to avoid ban<\/a><\/p>\n

Social media giant TikTok has reached a deal for a new joint venture in the United States to avoid being banned for American users. The platform’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance will retain a 19.9 per cent stake in the company.<\/p>\n

The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through until at least Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit says the social media companies borrowed “heavily from the behavioural and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry”.<\/p>\n

“Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximising youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks.<\/p>\n

Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.<\/p>\n

“Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

“They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each defendant.<\/p>\n

“They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”<\/p>\n

The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.<\/p>\n

A Meta spokesperson said in a statement on Monday the company strongly disagreed with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it was “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people”.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Casta\u00f1eda, a Google spokesperson, said on Monday that the allegations against YouTube were “simply not true”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, he said “providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work”.<\/p>\n

The case will be the first in a slew of lawsuits beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Reuters\/AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TikTok has agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit on social media addiction, according to one of the plaintiff’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,10830,1108,2456,5126,229813,2462,1333,2461,9336,32847,1314,101,1109,9963,3973],"class_list":["post-441934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-companies","tag-court","tag-facebook","tag-giants","tag-kgm","tag-lawsuit","tag-meta","tag-settlement","tag-snap","tag-snapchat","tag-social-media","tag-tiktok","tag-trial","tag-youth","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}