Today's Edition
LOS ANGELES (AFP)
Video sharing app TikTok has made an eleventh-hour deal to avoid a landmark US trial accusing it, along with Meta and YouTube, of addicting young people to social media, lawyers said on Tuesday.
The deal was made as jury selection was to begin in a Los Angeles court that could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict children.
The case being heard in the California state court is being called a "bellwether" proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.
The remaining defendants in the suit are Alphabet and Meta, the tech titans behind YouTube and Instagram.
Meta co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is slated to be called as a witness during the trial.
"The parties are pleased to have reached an amicable resolution of this dispute," the Social Media Victims Law Center said, noting that the terms of the settlement with TikTok are confidential.
Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of addicting young users to content that has led to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are explicitly borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies sold a harmful product.
The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl is expected to start next week after a jury is selected.
"The allegations in these complaints are simply not true," said Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson. "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work."
Meta has also rejected the allegations.
TikTok's settlement joins Snapchat, which last week confirmed that it made a deal to avoid the trial brought. The terms were not disclosed.
The companies face two other similar trials in the same court scheduled for later this year.
Lawsuits, including some brought by school districts, accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are also making their way through federal court in Northern California and state courts across the country.
