[ Novel action blames the companies for worsening mental health
and behavioral disorders among youth, including anxiety, depression
and cyberbullying.]
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SEATTLE SCHOOLS SUE TECH GIANTS OVER SOCIAL MEDIA HARM  
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Gene Johnson
January 8, 2023
HuffPost
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_ Novel action blames the companies for worsening mental health and
behavioral disorders among youth, including anxiety, depression and
cyberbullying. _

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SEATTLE (AP) — The public school district in Seattle has filed a
novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok,
Instagram, Facebook [[link removed]],
YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental
health crisis among youth.

Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. 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’
social media platforms,” the complaint said. “Worse, the content
Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and
exploitive ....”

Meta, Google [[link removed]], Snap and
TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

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

While hundreds of families are pursuing lawsuits against the companies
over harms they allege their children have suffered from social media,
it’s not clear if any other school districts have filed a complaint
like Seattle’s.

Internal studies revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in
2021 [[link removed]] showed that the
company knew that Instagram negatively affected teenagers by harming
their body image and making eating disorders and thoughts of suicide
worse. She alleged that the platform prioritized profits over safety
and hid its own research from investors and the public.

“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
pro-anorexia and eating disorder content.”

The lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30%
increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported
feeling “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more
in a row” that they stopped doing some typical activities.

The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop
creating the public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for
prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use
of social media.

* cell phones
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* mental health
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* students
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* Seattle
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