Seattle schools sue tech giants over social-media harm

SEATTLE— The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth.

Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit on Friday in US District Court. The 91-page complaint says the social-media companies have created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children.

It blames them for worsening mental health and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying; making it more difficult to educate students; and forcing schools to take steps such as hiring additional mental health professionals, developing lesson plans about the effects of social media, and providing additional training to teachers.

“Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ socialmedia platforms,” the complaint said. “Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive .... ”

While federal law—section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—helps protect online companies from liability arising from what thirdparty users post on their platforms, the lawsuit argues that provision does not protect the tech giants’ behavior in this case.

“Plaintiff is not alleging Defendants are liable for what third-parties have said on Defendants’ platforms but, rather, for Defendants’ own conduct,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants affirmatively recommend and promote harmful content to youth, such as proanorexia and eating disorder content.”

In e-mailed statements on Sunday, Google and Snap said they had worked to protect young people who use their platforms.

Snap launched an in-app support system called Here For You in 2020, to help those who might be having a mental health or emotional crisis find expert resources, and it also has enabled settings that allow parents to see whom their children contact on Snapchat, though not the content of those messages. It also has recently expanded content about the new 988 suicide and crisis phone system in the US.

“We will continue working to make sure our platform is safe and to give Snapchatters dealing with mental health issues resources to help them deal with the challenges facing young people today,” the company said in a written statement.

José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google, said Google, which owns Youtube, had also given parents the ability to set reminders, limit screen time and block certain types of content on their children’s devices.

“We have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well being,” Castañeda said.

Meta and Tiktok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.