School sues tech giant for damages to social media

Seattle: The Seattle Public School District is launching a new lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, trying to hold them accountable for the youth mental health crisis.

Seattle Public Schools filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The 91-page complaint alleges that social media companies caused public nuisance by directing their products to children.

They exacerbate mental health and behavioral disorders such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and cyberbullying, make it more difficult to educate students, encourage schools to hire additional mental health professionals, and improve lesson plans on social impact. It is accused of pressing for measures such as creation. Providing additional training for media and teachers.

“Defendant exploited the fragile brains of young people to engage tens of millions of students across the country in a positive feedback loop of overuse and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms,” the complaint states. increase. “Worse, the content curated by the defendants and directed at young people is too often harmful and exploitative….”

Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Federal law – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – helps protect online companies from liability arising from third-party users posting on their platforms, but in litigation, the provision, in this case, precludes the actions of tech giants. Claims not to protect

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“Plaintiff does not claim that defendant is responsible for what a third party says on defendant’s platform, but rather defendant’s own actions. “Defendant actively endorses and promotes content that is harmful to young people, including content that promotes anorexia and eating disorders.”

From 2009 to 2019, the lawsuit found an average 30% increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported quitting because they felt “very sad or hopeless for more than two consecutive weeks, almost every day” It is said that some typical activities.