By Diana Novak Jones
June 23 (Reuters) – Google’s YouTube has settled with a minor who claimed the platform caused mental health harms, the plaintiff’s lawyers said, ahead of a second California trial over claims the design of social media sites has fueled a youth mental health crisis.
The terms of the settlement of the state court lawsuit were confidential, the lawyers said on Tuesday.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement that the lawsuit had been amicably resolved and “our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on that promise.”
The lawsuit brought by the plaintiff, known as R.K.C., was selected as the second trial testing claims of individuals who say they were harmed by the design of social media platforms like Meta’s Instagram, Snap Inc’s Snapchat and ByteDance’s TikTok. The trial is slated to go ahead against Meta, Snap and TikTok in July.
More than 3,300 lawsuits involving addiction claims against social media companies are pending in California state court. Another 2,600 cases brought by individuals, school districts, municipalities and states are pending in California federal court.
The first trial, which ended in March, was in the case of a woman who said she became addicted to Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design. A jury found the companies negligent and ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million in damages and Google to pay $1.8 million. Earlier this month, the judge rejected the companies’ bid to set aside that verdict.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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