Florida teen drops Meta suit days before social media trial
What's next: The Los Angeles court still has hundreds of youth-harm cases pending, with another bellwether trial set for October.
A Florida teenager withdrew his lawsuit against Meta just days before a Los Angeles jury was due to hear the closely watched case over whether social media products harm children. The 15-year-old plaintiff, identified as R.K.C., had already settled similar claims against YouTube, TikTok and Snap, leaving Meta as the only remaining defendant. His lawyers said he chose to end the case rather than endure a weeks-long trial and wanted to focus on recovery and therapy. Meta said the case was dropped without any payment. The lawsuit was one of a small set of bellwether cases in broader litigation accusing major platforms of building addictive features such as infinite scroll and autoplay that harmed young users' mental health.