The list of school districts from across the nation that have filed lawsuits against social media companies continues to grow.
At least a dozen states have school districts that have filed such lawsuits, with Kentucky having the most. In Kentucky, at least 14 school districts have already filed complaints.
On the West Coast, Washington’s Seattle School District was the first to file a complaint in January, followed by California’s San Mateo County Board of Education in March and most recently Oregon’s Gervais School District.
Many states’ school districts have claimed that they have had to allot more funds for mental health in their schools due to social media and they think it’s time for the social media companies to help with those expenditures.
The lawsuits from the West Coast were different in that they cited research showing the harmful effects of social media and how the companies need to take more responsibility for how they run their businesses.
It is also the only one that isn’t suing Facebook or Instagram or their parent company, Meta.
Siculus, another company owned by Meta, is named in the complaints of Seattle School District and Gervais School District. ByteDance Inc., which owns TikTok, is also named in those two lawsuits.
Seattle School District’s is the only one on the West Coast that is solely based on the harm social media does to youth. As in other lawsuits, it states that youth have become “excessive and problematic users of social media” and that this has resulted in the adolescents facing a mental health crisis.
It also states that the defendants designed and created their platforms to target youth, even though they knew it was causing harm.
It states: “Social media exploits the same neural circuitry as gambling and recreational drugs to keep consumers using their products as much as possible.”
The Gervais School District’s complaint also claims that its youth have become “excessive and problematic users of social media,” while the San Mateo County Board of Education’s states that some of the youth have become addicted to social media.
The Seattle School District lawsuit complains of excessive social media use as well as users who “feel addicted.” It also mentions the TikTok challenge videos that have caused vandalism at local schools.
The San Mateo and Gervais complaints both complain of negligence, gross negligence, and the companies being a public nuisance.
All the lawsuits are demanding a jury trial and state that the algorithms from each of the companies are harmful and each of the companies knew they were and did nothing about it.
Most of the lawsuits reference information that was revealed when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen came forward with internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2021. The documents described harm done by social media companies.
Besides challenging the nuisance law of each of their corresponding states, these lawsuits are also challenging a portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Specifically, they are challenging Section 230, which states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Many are saying that it’s outdated and needs to be updated to address the issues social media is causing.
Section 230 is already being challenged in a different lawsuit that was filed against Google. The Supreme Court is expected to decide on the case by June.
Reynaldo Gonzalez and his family members filed the suit against Google after his daughter, Nohemi Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen studying in France, was killed in a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015. The next day, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility by issuing a written statement and posting a YouTube video.
Google owns YouTube. The complaint states that Google is also liable for Nohemi’s death because Google “aided and abetted an act of international terrorism” by allowing ISIS to “recruit members, plan terrorist attacks, issue terrorist threats, instill fear, and intimidate civilian populations.”
Gonzalez also alleges that Google used computer algorithms to recommend videos published by ISIS or related to ISIS. As a result, Gonzalez claimed that YouTube had become “an essential and integral part” and “a unique and powerful tool of communication” for ISIS’s terrorist campaign.
Many people are predicting that the outcome of this lawsuit will determine the outcomes of the school districts’ lawsuits.
School districts from Utah also plan to file lawsuits. They haven’t done so yet but have banned TikTok from being used by government workers and passed state laws requiring social media companies to get parental consent for all minor users. It was the first state to pass such a law, although it is unclear how the law will be enforced.
