TikTok has never let a teen-addiction case reach a jury. It just settled three more.

TikTok has a consistent answer to the lawsuits accusing it of harming children: settle, quietly, before a jury sees the evidence. On Monday it did so again.

The company has agreed to settle three cases it was scheduled to fight in October, Reuters reported. The three were bellwethers, test cases drawn from roughly 3,300 suits consolidated in California state court, chosen so both sides could gauge how juries might react. The terms are confidential. TikTok did not comment.

The plaintiffs are teenagers, named only by their initials. They allege that heavy use of the platforms drove addiction, anxiety, depression, self-harm and eating disorders. The companies deny the claims and say they take extensive steps to keep young users safe.

The one that never goes to trial

Look across the whole litigation and a pattern appears. This is not TikTok’s first exit. It settled the very first case before it went to trial in February. It settled again in July. It resolved the first school-district claim too. Across every bellwether so far, TikTok has paid rather than defend itself in front of a jury.

Its rivals chose differently, and paid for it. When the first case reached a verdict in March, a jury found Meta and Google liable for a young woman’s mental-health harms, awarding about $6m. Both are appealing. A settlement carries no such precedent, and no admission. For TikTok, the confidential cheque is the cheaper risk.

The cases keep coming

The October trial will now go ahead without it. Meta, YouTube and Snap are still set to face the three teen plaintiffs before a jury, the first real test of these claims since the March verdict. TikTok has removed itself from that test, as it did from the one in July.

Settling the bellwethers does not end the fight. Another 2,600 cases sit in federal court, brought by families, school districts, cities and states, and nearly every state attorney general has sued. Two more school-district trials are set for February. Each settlement clears one docket while thousands of similar claims wait behind it.

That is the calculation on display. A verdict sets a number and a precedent that the next plaintiff can cite. A settlement buys silence, case by case, for as long as the money holds out. TikTok is betting it can keep writing the cheques faster than the cases arrive.

This article discusses self-harm and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. In the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline; in the UK and Ireland, contact Samaritans on 116 123.