Seattle public schools sue TikTok and Facebook for hurting teen mental health
Christopher Hutton
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A Seattle school district filed a lawsuit against some of the biggest social media platforms, accusing them of playing a role in damaging the mental health of teenagers across the United States.
Seattle’s School District No. 1 filed the suit on Friday against several tech companies in the Western District of Washington. The lawsuit names Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Google, and YouTube as defendants and accuses them of designing their apps to promote addictive conduct.
The social media platforms “have intentionally cultivated, creating a mental health crisis among America’s youth,” the complaint says.
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Big Tech has exploited the pliable nature of teenage brains for profit, the suit alleges, by “hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms.”
These habits play a part in the rising rates of anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self-harm and suicide ideation, the school claimed. Seattle’s school district claims that between 2009 and 2019, it saw an average 30% increase in students claiming to be “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that [they] stopped doing some usual activities.”
While Section 230, a provision of communications law that protects platforms from being held accountable for what users post, typically protects websites such as Google and Facebook from being held accountable for content, the complaint argues that the law does not protect companies from being penalized for how they design their products.
The school district has requested that the companies’ conduct be declared a “public nuisance” under state law and held liable via a trial by jury.
Google dismissed the claims and promoted its efforts to protect teen mental health. “We have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their wellbeing,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda told Axios. Representatives from Snap said that the company is working “closely with many mental health organizations to provide in-app tools and resources for users and that the well-being of its community is its top priority.”
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Parents have grown increasingly wary of their teenagers using social platforms such as TikTok and Instagram without supervision, surveys have indicated. California lawmakers attempted to pass legislation allowing parents to sue Big Tech for encouraging addictive behavior.