Meta $META settled the first U.S. school district case to go to trial over the mental health costs schools say they have incurred because of social media platforms, according to Reuters.
Before Meta reached its agreement, co-defendants Alphabet $GOOGL's YouTube, Snap $SNAP, and TikTok had each settled separately with the Breathitt County School District, a small rural Appalachian district in Kentucky whose case had been heading toward a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, with a June 15 trial date.
The district claimed that these platforms were designed to keep young users engaged, which led to anxiety, depression, and self-harm among students. The district wanted more than $60 million, a 15-year mental health program for students, and a court order requiring the companies to remove addictive features from their platforms.
The Breathitt case was important beyond just this district. It was selected as a test case for about 1,200 other school districts making similar claims.
"We've resolved this case amicably and remain focused on our longstanding work to build protections like Teen Accounts that help teens stay safe online, while giving parents simple controls to support their families," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
The settlement comes amid a broader wave of legal pressure on Meta over the safety of its platforms for young users. A civil jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for $375 million in damages, concluding the company violated state consumer protection law by exposing children to sexual exploitation. Meta said it would appeal that verdict.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also testified in a separate Los Angeles bellwether case in which a plaintiff claims she developed a social media addiction as an underage user. In that proceeding, Zuckerberg argued that product decisions involve trade-offs and that engagement is not itself evidence of harm. Observers have drawn comparisons between the current wave of social media litigation and tobacco industry lawsuits of the 1990s, in which companies faced allegations of misleading the public about the safety of their products.