CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg school leaders are suing a major social media company over the impact its products have on students’ mental health.
The CMS Board of Education announced Friday a lawsuit against Byte-Dance, the parent company of Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok.
CMS alleges that these platforms cause addictive behavior in young people and endanger the mental well-being of those students.
“The board’s decision to take legal action reflects our unwavering commitment to the welfare of our students and will ensure that social media companies are held accountable for contributing to the mental health issues faced by CMS students. ,” said Elise Dashew, chair of the University of Charlotte Board of Trustees. The Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education said in a released statement.
CMS joins many districts across the country in this legal action.
“Social media companies deliberately design their platforms to hook young users to their services and profit from their developing intelligence. Children are becoming addicted to social media. “When exposed to harmful content without limit, it is far more likely to cause depression, anxiety, and other serious mental health effects,” said Phil Federico, an attorney representing the school board. said. Their announcement is on Friday. “Through this lawsuit, we are demanding that social media companies fully address the harm caused by their platforms and compensate school districts for the resources they have been forced to use to alleviate the youth mental health crisis. We plan to force them to do so.”
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Charlotte’s case is similar to cases happening across the country.
Earlier this year, Seattle Public Schools sued the big tech companies behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, accusing them of committing a public nuisance by targeting their products to children. .
The school district has accused the companies of exacerbating mental health and behavioral disorders, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders and cyberbullying. Educating students becomes more difficult. It forces schools to take steps such as hiring additional mental health professionals, developing lesson plans about the effects of social media, and providing additional training for teachers.
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Seattle Superintendent Brent Jones said in a statement: “Our students, and young people around the world, are suffering from the negative effects of increased screen time, unfiltered content, and the addictive potential of social media, compounded by the negative effects of increased screen time, unfiltered content, and the addictive potential of social media. “We are facing unprecedented learning and life challenges.” “We are confident and hopeful that this lawsuit will be an important step toward reversing this trend for students.”
Federal law (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996) helps protect online companies from liability arising from content posted on their platforms by third-party users. But the lawsuit argues that this provision predates all social media platforms and, in this case, does not protect tech giants from using their algorithms to promote harmful content. .
And the tech industry argues that social media’s impact on teens’ mental health is different in many ways from, say, Big Pharma’s role in promoting opioid addiction.
“The underlying argument is that the tech industry is responsible for the emotional state of teens because it has promoted content that causes emotional harm,” said the vice president and general counsel of the tech industry trade group NetChoice. Karl Szabo said. “It would be unreasonable to sue Barnes & Noble because an employee recommended a book that caused psychological harm or made teenagers feel uncomfortable. But this lawsuit does exactly that. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
But Szabo noted that Seattle’s graduation rate has increased since 2019, when many children relied on social media to stay in touch with friends during the pandemic. If social media were truly detrimental to school districts’ educational efforts, he suggested, graduation rates wouldn’t increase.
Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in Silicon Valley, said, “The complaint focuses solely on how social media harms children, and there may be evidence of that.” Ta. “But there’s also a lot of evidence that social media benefits teenagers and other children. What we don’t know is what our distress rates would be without social media.” could go up, not go down.”
Both companies say they take the safety of their users, especially children, seriously, and have introduced tools to make it easier for parents to see who their children are communicating with. We’ve made our mental health resources more visible, including our new 988 crisis hotline. Age verification and usage time limits have also been improved.
“When teens join Instagram, we automatically set their account to private and send them regular reminders to take breaks,” said Aniti Gone, Global Safety Officer at Meta. Davis said in an emailed statement. He identifies over 99% of the content we remove or take action on before it’s reported, including suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders. ”
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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed an internal investigation in 2021 that showed the company knew Instagram was having a negative impact on young people by harming their body image and exacerbating eating disorders and suicidal thoughts. revealed. She claimed the platform prioritized profits over safety and hid its research from investors and the public.
Even if social media benefits some students, it doesn’t eliminate serious harm to many others, says Fair Play for Children, a nonprofit organization that protects children from commercialization and marketing. said Josh Golin, executive director of Kids.
“The time schools have to spend monitoring and responding to social media drama, the mental health costs for students are prohibitive,” Golin said. “It’s ridiculous that schools are held responsible for the harm these social media platforms have caused to young people. No one sees the cumulative effects that social media is causing more than school districts.”
The Seattle lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court and is based on the state’s public nuisance law. The law is a broadly defined legal concept that dates back to at least 13th century England. In Washington, a public nuisance is defined as “any act or omission to perform a duty that is unlawfully committed” and “any act or omission that is unlawfully committed,” and “annoys or injures the safety, health, comfort, or well-being of a substantial number of persons.” or endanger the person.”
Most famously, public nuisance claims helped facilitate a $246 billion, 25-year settlement between the tobacco industry and states in 1998. But public nuisance laws also form at least part of the basis for lawsuits by state, city, county, and tribal governments. Hold oil companies responsible for climate change, the gun industry responsible for gun violence, the pharmaceutical industry responsible for the opioid crisis, and e-cigarette companies like Juul responsible for teen vaping. There is.
Many of the lawsuits are ongoing. Last month, Juul Labs agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits, including 1,400 from school districts, cities and counties, for a reported $1.2 billion.
The Seattle case could lead to large-scale changes, raising questions about the appropriateness of addressing major social problems in courts rather than through legislation. However, there is little risk to the school district because the private law firm filed the complaint with the stipulation that it would only be paid if the case is successful.
Jolina Quaresma, senior advisor for privacy and technology policy at Common Sense Media, which aims to make media safer for children, said she sees school districts filing public nuisance claims against technology companies. He said he was excited.
“People are tired of waiting for Congress to do something,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report