Social Media Companies Continue To Settle Lawsuits For Millions. More Than 9,000 Cases Are Pending.

Social media companies continue to quietly settle lawsuits filed by teen plaintiffs who say the platforms damaged their mental health for millions of dollars.

Although many of the agreements are confidential, Bloomberg Businessweek reported this week that most of the settlements range from $2 million to $2.5 million.

The outlet reported that in the last two weeks Meta paid a total of $7 million to resolve cases involving two teens. The report noted that about 9,800 lawsuits are currently filed against social media companies, creating potentially massive liability.

Earlier this year, Meta agreed to make massive changes to its platforms to protect children and pay $18 billion in damages to lawsuits filed by state attorneys general across the country.

The agreement comes after Meta lost a lawsuit filed by New Mexico. In that case, the company was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties, and an additional $567 million to set up a fund meant to address the mental health issues in children the company has helped cause.

Meta tried and failed to prevent thousands of other, similar lawsuits from moving forward. This included lawsuits brought by the state attorneys general across the country. Facing a potential legal reckoning, the company settled with the state attorneys general cases.

Regardless of those settlements, Meta and other social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube still face thousands of lawsuits filed by individuals. There is also a nationwide movement by school districts to sue social media companies.

Bloomberg noted that in every settlement where it learned the terms, the social media companies made no admission of wrongdoing. A statement from Meta to Bloomberg stated that "trials, dismissals and settlements are all common." According to the statement, more than a quarter of the cases that were picked for early trials were dismissed.

"It's impossible to extrapolate figures across such complex litigation from the first few cases, particularly when, even in this early stage, plaintiff dismissals have occurred so frequently," Meta stated.

Based on its settlement of the state attorneys general case, Meta is implementing changes to its platforms that might limit liability going forward.

"Today, we have secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of difference for children and their families," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the time of the settlement in August. "We are talking about time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters, and so much more."

Among the changes will be enhanced parental controls, a commitment to age assurance of users, and age-appropriate content restrictions. Some of the design changes for children will include hidden "likes" as a default, meaning kids won't be able to see how many "likes" their content gets or how many "likes" other people get.