Social media firms agree to pay $27 million to Kentucky school district

A Kentucky school district seeks a 15-year mental health programme and funding to address online effects on its students.

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Several social media companies agreed to pay about $27 million to a Kentucky school district as part of a settlement for a lawsuit blaming them for a student mental health crisis, according to court documents reviewed Monday by AFP. The sum included $9 million by Facebook parent company Meta; $8 million each from Snapchat parent Snap and ByteDance, which owns TikTok; and Google, whose portfolio includes YouTube, will pay around $2 million cash and offer training and software licenses valued at $900,000. The case was brought by the Breathitt County school district, a rural district in eastern Kentucky whose lawsuit had been chosen as a test case for more than 1,200 similar suits filed by school districts across the country. The district was seeking more than $60 million to fund a 15-year mental health program, as well as covering costs of remediating the effects of social media on its students, including sleep problems, emotional distress and conflicts. The case was set to go to trial later this month in Oakland, California when the four companies decided to settle. Google's offerings include an on-site professional development and training coach, a three-year license for its Google AI for Education software, a four-year "Social Emotional Learning" program and technical support of its Google Workspace tools. None of the settlements include any admission of wrongdoing. They are likely to increase pressure on the companies to settle the remaining cases, all of which are being overseen by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who recently presided over the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI chief Sam Altman. The settlements come after a series of legal rulings against social media companies. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for the addictive nature of their Instagram and YouTube platforms, setting a potential precedent that could impact future social media addiction lawsuits. That same month a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million for exposing minors to inappropriate content and sexual predators. More than 30 states are also suing Meta over similar social media claims in a separate case that could go to trial in August in Oakland.

The Kentucky school district that filed a social media addiction lawsuit against Meta and other companies is getting $27 million in settlement.

The settlements, which were announced earlier this month but without financial details, allowed the companies to avert the first trial in the nation over a school district's complaint