WASHINGTON, DC – Today, The Tech Oversight Project issued the following statement on news that TikTok settled its first case in the upcoming social media addiction trials. Per news reports, similar claims against Meta’s Facebook and Instagram and Google’s YouTube will proceed as scheduled for now. Terms of the proposed settlement have not been disclosed.

“Yesterday, we published a report that included unsealed court documents, shining a light on TikTok for knowingly violating COPPA and for working with the National PTA and FOSI to sanitize their reckless, dangerous products. This settlement should come as no surprise because that damning evidence is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project. “This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products. It’s imperative that lawmakers understand this is not about individual cases but about an entire nation of kids subjected to the deliberate harms of addictive social media, and we urge them to take action to pass laws that prevent any more children from dying preventable deaths.”