Several major social media companies have agreed to pay nearly $27 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a Kentucky school district that alleged their platforms contributed to a growing student mental health crisis.
According to court documents reviewed by AFP, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will pay $9 million as part of the settlement. Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat, and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, will each contribute $8 million.
Google will provide approximately $2 million in cash, along with training, software licences and support services valued at about $900,000.
The lawsuit was brought by the Breathitt County School District, a rural school district in eastern Kentucky. It was chosen as a bellwether case among more than 1,200 similar lawsuits filed by school districts across the United States.
The district had sought more than $60 million to fund a 15-year mental health programme and cover expenses related to issues it claimed were linked to social media use, including sleep disturbances, emotional distress and student conflicts.
The case was scheduled to go to trial later this month in Oakland, California, before the companies reached settlement agreements. As part of its settlement, Google will also provide educational support services, including an on-site professional development coach, a three-year licence for its AI-based education software, a four-year social-emotional learning programme and technical support for Google Workspace tools.
None of the companies admitted any wrongdoing under the terms of the settlements. Legal experts say the agreements could increase pressure on the tech firms to resolve hundreds of similar cases still pending before federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the broader litigation.
The settlements come amid increasing legal scrutiny of social media platforms. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable in a case alleging that Instagram and YouTube were designed in ways that encouraged addictive use. The ruling could have significant implications for future lawsuits involving social media’s impact on mental health.
