Seattle public schools sue social media platforms for youth ‘mental health crisis’

Seattle's public schools district has filed a lawsuit in the US against multiple major social media companies, accusing them of harming young people's mental health across the country.

The lawsuit which was filed on Friday with a US district court accused the social media companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of creating a "mental health crisis among America's youth".

"Defendants' growth is a product of choices they made to design and operate their platforms in ways that exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of their users into spending more and more time on their platforms. These techniques are both particularly effective and harmful to the youth audience," the 91-page lawsuit said.

"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," it added, citing harmful content including extreme diet plans and encouragements of self-harm.

The lawsuit went on to attribute the companies' alleged misconduct to the rising rates of anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm and suicide ideation experienced among young people.

According to the lawsuit, from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30% increase in the number of students at Seattle public schools who reported feeling "so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that [they] stopped doing some usual activities".

As students experience various mental health issues including anxiety and depression, their performance in schools drop, the lawsuit said, making them less likely to attend school and more likely to engage in substance use and to "act out", in turn hindering "Seattle public schools' ability to fulfill its educational mission".

Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal law helps provide immunity for online platforms with respect to third-party users and what they choose to post as content.

However, the lawsuit claims that the provision does not protect the social media companies and says they are liable for recommending, distributing and promoting content and marketing their social media platforms "in a way that causes harm".

Similarly, Snapchat said that it 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," the company told Reuters.

In October 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against allegations from lawmakers that claimed Facebook was making profits at the expense of young people's mental health.

"The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical," Zuckerberg said on Facebook, which is owned by Meta.

"We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don't want their ads next to harmful or angry content. And I don't know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed," he added.

The Guardian has reached out to Meta and TikTok for comment.

According to the lawsuit, the schools district is seeking damages as a result of the "public nuisance" which it has asked the court to order the companies to stop creating.

The district is also seeking money to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media.