$800-million Ottawa-carleton District School Board lawsuit claims social-media giants harming schools
The OCDSB is seeking $350 million in general and special damages, $100 million in aggravated damages and $350,000 in punitive and exemplary damages.
The Ottawa-carleton District School Board is one of four large Ontario school boards that filed lawsuits against social-media giants on Wednesday, claiming their products have harmed children and schools.
A 65-page statement of claim filed Wednesday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa claims the parent companies and Canadian counterparts of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok are disrupting the way children think, behave and learn, leaving the school system to manage the fallout with limited resources.
Social media has been designed to lead to compulsive use and that compulsive use is causing massive strains on school board resources, including increased costs for mental health programming and staff, increased information technology costs and additional administrative costs, the statement of claim said.
The OCDSB is seeking $350 million in general and special damages, $100 million in aggravated damages and $350,000 in punitive and exemplary damages.
None of the claims have been proven in court.
The statement of claim called on the social-media companies to remediate the school boards and redesign their products to make them safe for children. “Students’ social media use is causing a student mental health crisis, for example, increased rates of anxiety, depression, social-media addiction, body dysphoria, anorexia, low selfesteem, disordered eating, self-harm and suicide.”
Social-media use has caused attention issues in the classroom and has been linked to cyberbullying and self-esteem issues in children, OCDSB director of education Pino Buffone said in an interview.
Whether it’s called addiction, habit formation or manipulation, children who use social media get rewards for using it and these behaviours are reinforced, he said. It was a problem even before the pandemic.
“I visit a school a week on average. Students are expressing social-media concerns. They’re aware of this. There is peer pressure and bullying. Staff are trying to manage this,” Buffone said. “I hear concerns from parents and guardians.”
The OCDSB is experiencing more frequent bomb threats, shooting threats, death threats or vague threats, such as a student taking and posting a photo with what appears to be a gun or weapon over social media, the statement of claim said.
The school board has been forced to divert resources to “proactively monitoring” social media for threats and staff must respond to threats that are outside work hours or on the weekend, said the statement of claim, which added that the board was also expending resources on responding to cyberbullying and harassment on social media.