Meta plaintiff drops addiction lawsuit

A plaintiff in the social media addiction case has dropped his lawsuit against Meta Platforms (META) after settling with the three other plaintiffs and less than a week before a trial was to begin.

“Days after settling with other social media companies, the plaintiff dropped his case against Meta, the only remaining defendant, without receiving any payment. The claims never held up, and this outcome makes clear that we will not back away from defending ourselves against baseless lawsuits,” the company said in a statement.

The plaintiff recently settled with Snap (SNAP) for an undisclosed amount, although consistent with similar agreements reached with Google’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) YouTube and TikTok. 

This is just one of nearly 3K active social media addiction lawsuits pending, which claim platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube are intentionally designed to be addictive to minors.  

The news has done little to dent the downward trajectory of Meta (META) shares over the last five days, with shares down another 2.7% on Wednesday.