San Francisco (United States) (AFP) - Meta reached a settlement in a landmark case over the alleged harms of social media, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said Friday, leaving Snap as the only defendant in a trial set to open in Los Angeles next week.

“We remain committed to improving safety for kids on social media apps and holding tech companies accountable, and we are pleased to have brought this matter to a just resolution on behalf of our client,” Emily Jeffcott, a lawyer representing one of the young women suing both companies, said in a statement.

Jury selection began on Wednesday, and opening statements are scheduled for November 4.

The terms of the agreement are confidential, but sources close to Meta told AFP the company decided to settle for business reasons.

“Trials, dismissals and settlements are all common in the bellwether process, and this litigation is no exception,” a Meta spokesperson said, referring to the series of test cases against the company being tried in Los Angeles.

If Snap does not settle, the trial will go ahead next week.

Snap did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TikTok and YouTube were also named as defendants in the case, but both had already reached settlements with the plaintiffs, known by their initials SJ and KDB, their lawyers said.

Meta had also previously settled with SJ.

A California state judge consolidated the two cases into a single trial.

Snap, which makes Snapchat, will defend itself against the claims of both SJ and KDB.

Lawyers for SJ and KDB will argue that their clients were exposed to “addictive and problematic” social media apps when they started using them at ages 13 and 15, respectively, according to court documents.

“We believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first, and that these allegations fundamentally misrepresent the plaintiffs’ experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed,” a Snap spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week.

-Avoiding trial-

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed in recent years in local, state and federal courtrooms across the country with various claims about alleged harms to children and teenagers caused by social media companies.

The cases – the first of which went to trial earlier this year in Los Angeles – have taken twists and turns.

Meta and YouTube lost the first so-called bellwether case earlier this year, when a jury found them collectively liable for harming a young user known by the initials KGM, and ordered the tech companies to pay a combined $6 million penalty.

Snap and TikTok settled with KGM ahead of that trial.

Months later, Snap, TikTok and YouTube settled another case that was set to go to trial in August; that plaintiff, known as RKC, then withdrew their remaining claims against Meta, allowing the Instagram and Facebook maker to avoid trial without a settlement.

By settling before a trial kicks off, the social media companies contain costs from lawyer fees and potential penalties; another benefit is that it shields their executives from testifying in court.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri were expected to be called as key witnesses in the upcoming Los Angeles trial.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is expected to testify if the trial proceeds without another settlement.

In August, Meta agreed to pay more than $18 billion in penalties, in addition to making changes to Instagram and Facebook for teens, when it settled with 52 attorneys general several days into a trial held in California.

That settlement came just a day after Mosseri testified, and before Zuckerberg had been called to the stand.

Meta has faced other trials, though.

Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in a case where the company was found liable for deceiving users in the state about how their data was used in a case related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

A New Mexico jury also found the social media giant liable for harms to children, leading to a combined penalty of $942 million earlier this year.