US Court Says Meta, Google, TikTok Must Face School's Addiction Claims (image @Pixabay)
A US Court said Meta Platforms Inc., Google, TikTok, and Snap will have to face lawsuits brought by school districts. The platforms were blamed for their “addictive” apps in contributing to a mental health crisis among students.
The ruling was made by District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, and it came after a contrasting decision by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in favour of the companies on June 7.
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The US Court generally denied a request for dismissal of negligence claims but narrowed the scope of allegations that will proceed. Rogers concluded that some claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a longstanding federal law shielding internet companies from lawsuits, stated a media report.
Google and Meta spokespersons denied the allegations. They said that their companies have taken steps to keep young users safe on the platforms. Snap also cited its safety initiatives and pointed to research showing that its Snapchat has a positive impact on the well-being of users. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new ruling comes just over a week after Rogers ruled that Meta must face a lawsuit by dozens of state attorneys general alleging that it knowingly hooked kids on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. TikTok faces similar claims by a coalition of states. Both companies have denied wrongdoing.
The platforms also face hundreds of personal injury suits accusing them of designing their platforms to encourage youths to spend unhealthy amounts of time on screens.
Unlike any of those, the school cases may carry bigger potential monetary damages because each district seeks to recoup institutional costs from the negative repercussions of having hundreds of individual students hooked on social media.
According to the school districts, the companies engineered their platforms to addict kids by using algorithms and features such as the “like” button in ways that hurt society—akin to cigarette manufacturers that designed their products to be addictive.
As per Rogers, the schools’ core legal theory was viable: the social media companies “deliberately fostered compulsive use of their platforms, which foreseeably caused” the school districts to spend resources on combating the mental health crisis among students.
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the allegations aren’t true.
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“In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls,” Castaneda said in a statement.
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that the company disagrees with the court’s decision.
“We’ve developed numerous tools to support parents and teens, and we recently announced that we’re significantly changing the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new Teen Accounts, a protected experience for teens that automatically limits who can contact them and the content they see,” as per the statement.
Lexi Hazam and Previn Warren, lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, hailed the ruling as a victory “for schools, teachers, and administrators who are on the front lines of the nation’s youth mental health crisis.”
“Because of the addictive design of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, students are struggling,” they said in a statement. “That means schools are struggling – their budgets are stretched and their educational missions are diverted as they shoulder the added responsibility of supporting kids in crisis.”
(With inputs from agencies)
