School district sues Meta, Google, and TikTok over ‘mental health crisis’

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/2/23746904/maryland-school-meta-google-tiktok-snap-lawsuit

by pseudolus • 3 years ago

166 168 3 years ago

.. 100% behind this long overdue action.

I’m not a fan of any of the companies listed but I don’t necessarily like blaming them for things parents shouldn’t be giving their kids access to. But maybe these lawsuits will wake some parents up.

mentos• 3 years ago

What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes?

veave• 3 years ago

Even if you did, parents shouldn't allow their kids to get cigarettes. Parents trying to get out of parenting is getting old already.

throw_m2393393• 3 years ago

What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes?

Well, then people should show some ID before using the internet or something to prove they are adults? How do you enforce that? at the ISP level? at the device level? At the website level? Genuine question. Who's responsibility is that? In a society where nobody wants to be responsible for anything?

DirectorKrennic• 3 years ago

I don't see regulators pushing for Meta and Google to be broken up, or for ISPs to nuke TikTok in the USA. It's been talked about for years but nothing ever happens.

maxbond8• 3 years ago

I don't think parents can just keep their kids off of social media, at least teens. How are they supposed to function socially if they're not even able to enter the spaces where a huge amount of the socializing is happening? What about during the pandemic, when it was virtually all online? If the goal is to promote their mental health and their growth, cutting them off from their peer group doesn't seem like a promising strategy.

It seems silly to blame the parents when the world has shifted around them, outside of their control.

geraldwhen2• 3 years ago

Many teens did not isolate. They had no reason to. Virtual relationships are low value, and I encourage my kids to do things in person.

gitowiec2• 3 years ago

The space you call social media, is not a space where children learn social behaviours.

Aerbil3132• 3 years ago

if they're not even able to enter the spaces where a huge amount of the socializing is happening

That’s anti-socializing. That is nothing but huge skinner boxes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

brightball2• 3 years ago

My kids are in middle school.

Almost all of their friends have no restrictions at all on phone use, electronics, video streaming, etc. A few have been on TikTok and Instagram since they were in 5th grade. The amount of pressure I hear to let them have Snapchat is constant.

Regardless, we maintained the restrictions. Apple Family makes it fairly easy to manage. Xbox controls are a little more of a pain but they work too to moderate.

I’ve talked to my kids about the addictive and psychological elements of how certain games work or videos. They listened but didn’t understand.

Last week, they started talking to me about how a lot of their friends have a phone in front of their face all the time and they see what we’ve been trying to warn them about. It was a struggle to get there but seeing that they finally really understood was big.

The flip side though, the reason they understand is because they see people who have fallen victim to it. It’s like understanding why your parents warned you about drugs because you see what happened to your friend who fell into it.

We know the consequences. At this point, parents shouldn’t have to spend so much time worrying about this. It’s not easy but it should be.

mattgreenrocks• 3 years ago

I am with you. I will die on this hill.

Social media is toxic: it’s not real, it’s a waste of life when there’s tons of other awesome things you can do. And the legitimization of chasing Internet Points is truly sad.

pfisch2• 3 years ago

Are you at all concerned that you aren't inoculating them to deal with the real world now in a safer space? In the future it will all be unlocked at once and they may be unable to deal with the addictive nature of this stuff.

They might also not know how to interact properly in the real world.

TheAceOfHearts• 3 years ago

On one side parents who are likely overworked, on the other a group of corporation filled with some of the top minds of our era focused on building the most addictive product imaginable. The deck is stacked very strongly against parents and it's completely unreasonable to not hold greater accountability towards these massive corporations.

wiseowise5• 3 years ago

Have you ever been a child? Kids don’t live in isolation.

hnlmorg• 3 years ago

As a parent I can assure you that both things need to happen.

It’s like how cigarettes weren’t allowed to be advertised to children. Sure, parents were responsible for teaching kids not to smoke but companies need to also be held accountable for the well-being of their product and it’s users too. It’s not an either / or. There is enough responsibility for all parties to be accountable.

xg153• 3 years ago

I think you can reformulate the old "bank debt" adage for social media and still have it hold true:

If 10% of your users are using your product wrong, the users are at fault. If 90% are using it wrong, it's your fault.

rvz• 3 years ago

Finally. Some action against the biggest tech companies of some sort, especially both Meta and TikTok the usual suspects.

Also an unrelated note, do NOT browse this site without an ad-blocker. Just realized that The Verge has regressed in quality and is riddled with ads just like the Daily Mail.

throw_m2393393• 3 years ago

Finally. Some action against the biggest tech companies of some sort, especially both Meta and TikTok the usual suspects.

Section 230. These lawsuits have zero merit until regulations change.

baby-yoda• 3 years ago

Section 230 protects against liability from user generated content. My understanding is the school is alleging the platforms operate in purposefully addictive and damaging behavior. IANAL of course but it sounds like the actions of the platform itself would be clearly outside of S230.

Hamuko• 3 years ago

I feel like other countries might try to tackle these kinds of issues with legislation instead.

gitowiec2• 3 years ago

I'm very happy that USA schools are trying to fight unsocial media. This is an example the world should take. For example, there is such a thing as parenting burnout. I as a father of 6 yo child which uses smartphone very rarely just to play two games we approved, am thinking too much about moment my child will start school. The moment where she will see most children have smartphones, use them without supervision and watch stupid videos. Support from schools would help me to worry less and allow me to feel that my child is safe.

JKCalhoun2• 3 years ago

Anti-social media?

When I was raising my daughters the smart phones didn't come until their peers hit middle school (their teens). They did the odd web-surfing (desktop) thing while in elementary school though.

Are smart phones really in the elementary schools now?

jdthedisciple2• 3 years ago

Smartphones are most definitely in elementary schools by now, correct.

What's more, most of them will have TikTok and/or SnapChat installed.

unnamed76ri2• 3 years ago

They definitely are. What’s more, elementary kids already know what porn is and how to find it. My son was exposed to porn by other kids in 4th grade!

Mezzie3• 3 years ago

I work somewhere that sees moms with their little littles (under 3) fairly often. THAT age group is addicted. It's terrifying.

micromacrofoot7• 3 years ago

multiple first graders in my childs class have phones, I regularly see children that can’t walk using their parents phones to watch youtube while being pushed in strollers

AndrewKemendo3• 3 years ago

Yes my kids have been talking about the pervasive phone use in their elementary school

Unrestricted phones too it seems

sjy• 3 years ago

The UK telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, publishes some useful annual research on this topic [1]. According to the media use and attitudes report 2023 [2]:

Smartphone ownership shifts markedly in [the children aged 8-11] group, which correlates with the children’s transition to secondary school … As reported by parents, more than half of 8-11-year-olds (55%) owned a mobile phone, a significant increase on children aged 3-4 and 5-7 (both at 20%).

[1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/media-literacy-re...

[2] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/255852/...

dudul2• 3 years ago

First, at 6 why does your kid even need to know what a smartphone is? At 6, a phone should be to "call people", period.

Second, it can be expensive and therefore not an option for everyone but there are schools with solid phone/media policies. My kids go to a school where phones are forbidden until 9th grade.

Mezzie3• 3 years ago

If 6 bothers you, the number of toddlers/infants I see using phones and tablets would really concern you. I'd say a good half of the kids who are brought into the store where I work end up on a tablet or phone without an adult. Including the little littles.

mym1990• 3 years ago

Because for a lot of parents it is a way to get their kid to engage with something other than the parent.

ben_w2• 3 years ago

The "phone" part of a smartphone may not be of any importance to a kid, but are they even that to average adults any more? I'm not even sure when I last used that aspect on mine for anything other than SMS-based 2FA.

I wouldn't trust the general web to be age-appropriate for under-12s these days, including all advertising in any apps, but that doesn't mean I can't sympathise with parents desperate for some distraction.

My parents had it relatively easy with me: when I was five, I was using a Commodore 64, learning to read from its user manual and just starting to notice that the loading screens for some games counted oddly, going "…, 8, 9, A, B, …"

The worst that any of that meant for my parents was the incredibly minor point that that I was aware enough to notice the dual meaning of "Jet Set Willy".

liminal-dev• 3 years ago

Your comment is condescending against OP's parenting style. It is difficult to control how your child perceives phones, as managing their exposure to them is impossible, especially when taking your child outside where they'll see people using them in public. They may also visit a friend whose parents let them use a phone, so again, it's an uphill battle.

Roark66• 3 years ago

Who are they're going to sue next? City planners for their contributions to social problems?

jonnycomputer5• 3 years ago

Would that be unreasonable?

Because it's not like there is no history of government policy / decision makers managing to create or exacerbate social problems.

e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town

uptownJimmy• 3 years ago

That's a great idea, yes.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

Is this not a palatable alternative to shrugging your shoulders and saying, "I guess we're just fucked"? Determine root causes and pursue with full vigour, utilizing all available tools. Even if you fail, you're sending important signal to stakeholders.

yodsanklai2• 3 years ago

I'm not sure what's really new here, and if it's such a problem. When I was a kid, there were similar discussions. Kids watch too much TV, play too many video games, watch porn VHS when parents are away. In the end, it wasn't such a big deal.

micromacrofoot7• 3 years ago

I don’t think tv ever radicalized white supremacists and terrorists like youtube has, the personal recommendation systems amplify everything

blix• 3 years ago

Computers aren't really new. Addition and writing have been around for a long time. There's nothing that a computer can do that can't theoretically be accomplished by a team of people with abaci and carrier pigeons.

The entire value proposition of modern computation is about scale and cost. It's the same things, but with much higher quantity and intensity. Something that can be tolerably safe at 1 unit/day may be very dangerous at 1000 units/day. I would be surprised if pre-teen porn consumption has only risen by 1000x in the past 30 years.

JoeAltmaier• 3 years ago

It's all 100x faster and 1MX more.

Yet humans are the same biological systems.

At what point does it go from entertainment to obsession to something like heroin? There's a point where it does, and we could probably figure out a metric.

It's disingenuous to pretend 'oh there's nothing new here'

FoomFries• 3 years ago

I don’t remember being able to do this at school while in a classroom. So I guess that part is new. And likely a problem if that’s the only venue for required learning.

thatguy09002• 3 years ago

Were you playing too many video games and watching too much porn while at school, or at home? Were those video games engineered with the help of psychologists to addict you as much as possible?

JKCalhoun2• 3 years ago

I may be older than you so ... TV (we only had broadcast) sucked during the day since it apparently targeted housewives. That, as it turns out, sent us outside to play, ride our bikes.

Video games had not arrived — when they did they cost a quarter to play. That kind of limited the time spent there, ha ha. Personal computers were expensive so even when they arrived, we of course did not have one.

Porn was finding a magazine in the trash can behind an office building.

The thing that saddens me the most about all of this stuff (the internet especially, perhaps) is that kids aren't out trying to fly a kite any more.

zo1• 3 years ago

You say it wasn't such a big deal, yet here we are in a thread discussing a mental health crisis that most of us agree is occurring. Maybe they were right and if we listened we wouldn't be here now.

gsatic• 3 years ago

Here is the latest UN economist network report on the Attention Economy - https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/attention_economy_...

Its not enough to sue them. They need to be drastically rearchitected.

endisneigh2• 3 years ago

These lawsuits make no sense. The schools can already ban phone usage and have no authority to dictate things outside classrooms. 1st amendment will squash these (and if they didn’t you should be concerned at the implication).

But since we are filing ridiculous suits they should sue fast food companies and junk food ones as well. It’s already well established that poor nutrition affects student outcomes significantly.

They should also sue state governments for blocking housing too since student homeless is a problem.

xg153• 3 years ago

That might actually be a good idea, considering the obesity crisis is well-known.

llamaimperative2• 3 years ago

What legal theory is that? The whole point of lawsuits is to exercise power over things you don’t have direct control over. And that’s a good thing.

kristiandupont2• 3 years ago

These lawsuits make no sense

Do you mean legally? Because ethically, I think they make perfect sense. And I would think similar about going after fast food companies and possibly other industries.

ifdefdebug• 3 years ago

Since it's a lawsuit, there is unfortunately only one way for it to make sense: legally.

bthrn• 3 years ago

The first amendment only applies to state actors. I’m not sure why it’s so frequently used broadly as a blanket for free speech in any context.

endisneigh2• 3 years ago

Yes, however meta and Google are inclusive of speech against the government. Under what grounds would wholesale ban be allowed then? The entire suit will fail and they know it. More waste of tax payer dollars.

If they care about this they can simply ban phones in their school districts.

This suit is analogous to banning fedex and ups because kids are addicted to mailing each other scandalous notes. Clearly will fail.

If there’s specific content posted by specific groups that are a concern the school should go after them.

wiseowise5• 3 years ago

Long overdue.

woodruffw5• 3 years ago

Not to spoil the good time here, but where’s the standing?

I don’t think the courts have ever broadly recognized schools’ standing with respect to things that can harm students outside of the school’s walls. I would think that the appropriate regulatory tool here is having each school (or district) institute bans on device use during school hours, not suing random companies.

jonnycomputer5• 3 years ago

Not a lawyer, but I think you are right that the case will end up hinging on this; my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission.

woodruffw5• 3 years ago

my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission.

I don't think this is wrong per se, but it's hard to see a court accepting that broad environmental concerns of this sort fall under schools' purviews.

Put another way: if schools can sue social media companies for disrupting the educational environment, what stops them from suing oil companies for making the world uninhabitable for their students? The problem isn't factuality (the school is arguably correct in both cases!), but scope.

AndrewKemendo3• 3 years ago

I would venture to guess they are suing BECAUSE they can’t do anything else

I’ll tell you that for the schools that my kids go to, parents would most likely throw a massive tantrum if they banned phones.

Beyond that…it wouldn’t work and would either be ignored and just another mis-applied or selectively punished thing or further turn every school into prison-lite.

In reality the entire school system is a sham intended to be public day care so that parents don’t have any reason they can’t go to work. So anything that would functionally work to improve education is orthogonal at best.

woodruffw5• 3 years ago

The public school system I went to has around a million students in it, and had a complete ban on cellphones until 2014. My understanding is that phones are still banned on a school-by-school basis, although there is no longer a system-wide policy.

Banning phones in schools isn’t popular with students (and is unenforceable on the long tail), but it’s the only actual tool that schools have here. Filing lawsuits with social media companies makes for fun headlines, but it doesn’t grant them standing.

topper-123• 3 years ago

IMO social media should age check by law. The problem with parental control is that it’s very difficult to say no, if the child’s friends are on socal media. Let the social media do age controls, by law.

ValleZ• 3 years ago

How?

jdthedisciple2• 3 years ago

And as a result have everyone upload their personal identification to some untrustworthy corporate database?

Thanks but no thanks.

There ought to be better solutions.

My view is that it's a question of culture. In particular, the eradication of any sort of authority (parents, teachers) and the worshipping of "I want, therefore it's good and my right" are among the root causes for this epidemic.

filmor• 3 years ago

Have age checking done by a trusted third party that only certifies the age check on the spot without storing any information (post office or sth like that?)?

iakov2• 3 years ago

A government API / website to do the verification can work similar to OpenID - the end application doesn't know any PII, receiving a JWT with some basic info (name, age email) instead.

Just something on top of my head, I'm sure that there are solutions to this. It's the political will and balls that are nowhere to be found...

goda902• 3 years ago

The government could provide anonymous age credentials. A private-public key that neither the website nor the government can use to identify the user, but that confirms the user holds a key issued by the government verifying their age.

triceratops4• 3 years ago

And as a result have everyone upload their personal identification to some untrustworthy corporate database?

What about having IRL stores sell one-time use age verification tokens after showing ID? Just like tobacco or alcohol they can make it illegal to provide them to a minor. Whereas if you're worried about privacy you can still buy with cash.

woodruffw5• 3 years ago

IMO social media should age check by law.

They do[1]. Most social media sites in the US don't allow children under 13 to use their sites, as a matter of policy. There have been proposals to expand COPPA to other forms of tracking and to children under 16.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot...

brandon272• 3 years ago

To be clear, “age checking” involves nothing more than having the user enter their birthdate via a datepicker. Not exactly the same kind of verification used for things like cigarettes or alcohol.

nonethewiser2• 3 years ago

We expect youtube to moderate content for kids. And they do a pretty good job. There is no reason Facebook, TikTok, etc should be exempt.

Problem for TikTok is the very nature of it is whats bad for kids. Shortens attention span.

izacus2• 3 years ago

What are the American parents doing then? They just let corporations raise their kids and choose what they can see?

ahahahahah• 3 years ago

It's crazy to me that people can't accept that most things have both positive and negative effects. Facebook was absolutely hated on for doing research into understanding and minimizing those possible negative effects.

I mean, for fucks sake, attending schools themselves has been directly linked to increased suicides (https://fee.org/articles/new-study-shows-the-striking-correl... and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of..., for example).

vharuck• 3 years ago

Facebook was absolutely hated on for doing research into understanding and minimizing those possible negative effects.

IIRC, the outcry was because Facebook was performing a psychological experiment without subjects' consent. That's considered unethical.

jonnycomputer5• 3 years ago

Not just considered. Is.

perihelions2• 3 years ago

Am I alone in thinking this is batshit crazy on a multidimensional fractal of levels? What possible standing does a school have in the relation between students and a third-party website? What possible resolution could one ask for, that doesn't trod all over the First Amendment like a rabid horse with muddy hooves? Also, how is "internet causes mental health issues" even an acceptable cause of action? It's just people speaking freely with each other. To say that's a "crisis" is to utterly reject the free-society value that people speak freely with each other, that that's everyone's inalienable, unquestionable right. It's unvarnished authoritarianism.

(And yet again, if people are contemplating this direction of authoritarian control, it's simply because they perceive a small crisis, and don't know how else to answer it besides brute force. (But all of civilization is a series of little emergencies; if you start thinking in policy in terms of emergency measures, you'll never have normality again)).

paulcole• 3 years ago

it’s political grandstanding by someone who wants to run for office

ineedausername• 3 years ago

Were do you draw the line?

What if social media design is malicious intentionaly and kids are so messed up that x school can't function anymore (hypothetically).

ethanbond2• 3 years ago

We have concepts like “the First Amendment” and “standing” and so on exclusively to build and maintain a strong society. All of these things are subject, at the end of the day, to the assessment of whether they are effective at preventing bad things and preserving good things.

If, for example, 100% of people under the age of 18 commit suicide within one month of being on Instagram, these arguments correctly would not prevent action against Instagram. We’d simply find a way to prevent kids from going on IG while weakening as little as possible the First Amendment’s protections of things that are good for our society.

The only point of debate here is where each individual draws the line.

From my observation, it seems people who are close to children a lot (parents, teachers, medical professionals) have been screaming their fucking brains out about this problem in ever-increasing intensity for years and years. People who are not close to children (20-something year old tech workers and HN browsers) think it’s all made up.

perihelions2• 3 years ago

- "exclusively to build and maintain a strong society"

Human rights (i.e. freedom of speech) aren't utilitarian concepts for achieving some secondary end-goal, like a desired social outcome. They're an end-goal in themselves. That's the core value judgement of free societies: the recognition of human dignity, human autonomy, as an *intrinsic* moral good to be protected at great cost.

mrweasel2• 3 years ago

Assuming that the schools are correct and social media companies are harming the mental health of children, then it should be the health authorities doing the suing. The schools are to a large extend the organisations having to deal with the mental health issues, so it is affecting their budgets and ability to do their job, that could constitute them suing for being imposed an unreasonable burden by a private companys business practices. Maybe... I'm not a lawyer, it might also be as simple as "It needs to be done and no one else seems to care".

Nasrudith• 3 years ago

No you're not, although the zeitgeist is annoyingly against you. The same bullshit they rolled their eyes at as a kid they accept uncritically replayed as an adult. Most notably they didn't come up with that conclusion on their own after maturing, but by following demagogues and propaganda-documentaries.

ZooCow• 3 years ago

The article is light on the actual allegations, but at least they link to the complaint [1] (so few articles do). The claims are: Public Nuisance, Negligence, and Gross Negligence.

The special damage they claim to have suffered seems to primarily relate to expanding and diverting resources to deal with mental health issues of students.

The table of contents of the complaint is a good summary of their assertions, including:

    Defendants’ apps have created a youth mental health crisis.

    Defendants target children as a core market, hooking kids on their addictive social media platforms.

    Children are uniquely susceptible to Defendants’ addictive apps.
    
    Defendants design their apps to attract and addict youth.

    Millions of kids use Defendants’ products compulsively.
    
    Defendants' defective products encourage dangerous "challenges."
    
    Defendants' defective social media apps facilitate and contribute to the sexual exploitation and sextortion of children, and the ongoing production and spread of child sex abuse material online.

[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23832853-maryland-sc...

jonnycomputer5• 3 years ago

- Defendants’ apps have created a youth mental health crisis.

Causality is really hard to establish, possibly impossible in this case. Nonetheless, there does appear to be a youth mental health crisis, and it arose around the time of the smart phone. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/honestly-its-probably-the-phon...

- Defendants target children as a core market, hooking kids on their addictive social media platforms.

It certainly appears that way to me; but it would help to get actual documentation of intent.

- Children are uniquely susceptible to Defendants’ addictive apps.

There is a lot of science that says that teens are vulnerable to addiction; the dual systems view, a pretty influential perspective, is that sensitivity to reward (particularly social rewards) increases dramatically in adolescence, but cognitive control lags; this leads to an increase in exploration vs exploitation, which is adaptive, but risky. I think they are on strong ground here.

- Defendants design their apps to attract and addict youth.

Like the last, documentation of intent would be the best thing for the case.

- Millions of kids use Defendants’ products compulsively.

This is probably true. Adults too. Defense is going to say that its up to parents and guardians to police the use of these apps. That argument didn't work with cigarettes and alcohol, so I'm guessing won't work here eitehr.

- Defendants' defective products encourage dangerous "challenges."

This is true

- Defendants' defective social media apps (a) facilitate and contribute to the sexual exploitation and sextortion of children, (b) and the ongoing production and spread of child sex abuse material online.

I've denoted one as (a) and one as (b). (b) is undoubtedly the case. (a) is more culture-war-y, but its hard to argue that a lot of the viral video content is not sexxed up*

* I'm no prude, but find it annoying that 90% of the reels that Facebook suggest to me are sexual in nature, and that the sexually arousing nature of the suggested videos grabs my eyeballs. I mean, it works. But, I don't want those kind of distractions when I'm scrolling to see what friends and family are up to. Oh look, my sister took her kids to the beach. Oh look, that couple is simulating sex on a picnic table! Oh look, Mom got her first ripe tomatoes!

jaybrendansmith• 3 years ago

I've recently quit Twitter and Facebook, and I must admit that these apps are mentally addictive in the same way that cigarettes are addictive. I often think about them when bored, wondering what I'm 'missing' with my friends or followers. It's taken a level of mental strength to avoid re-installing or re-activating in both cases. So in my view, the addiction is 30% of the argument. The 30% is that they cause harm, and remainder, which I agree will be more difficult to prove, is that it was done with intent.

amerkhalid• 3 years ago

This is probably true. Adults too. Defense is going to say that its up to parents and guardians to police the use of these apps. That argument didn't work with cigarettes and alcohol, so I'm guessing won't work here either.

But cigarettes and alcohol is legally age restricted. Or did that happen later?

SamoyedFurFluff• 3 years ago

Regarding evidence that social media targets children as a market and strategizes how to continue engagement (aka addiction) I actually don’t think this will be extremely hard to prove. Instagram already has internal documentation showing they’re aware that their application has a causal relationship to the harm of the mental health of teenaged girls, but obviously Instagram hasn’t done much of anything to improve things. At minimum I bet similar studies exist in other platforms in internal discussions, and gross negligence if not intent can be measured via subpoena and discovery. It would only take one higher up writing a slack message that effectively says, I want this feature done, no I don’t want this mitigating implementation that would make it less harmful.

ren_engineer• 3 years ago

seems like Baltimore leadership is just trying to find ways to blame other people for problems they created. They are also suing Kia on the same weak basis of "public nuisance".

https://mayor.baltimorecity.gov/news/press-releases/2023-05-...

now they are blaming their horrible school results on social media. Hopefully the courts throw it out

thatguy09002• 3 years ago

I agree this case probably shouldn't succeed, but pretending that these companies have no part in a ongoing youth mental health crises, and that they arnt targeting youth purposefully, is also not the way to go about this.

hgsgm4• 3 years ago

Several municipalities and insurance companies have sued Kia for their catastrophic failure. It's not just Baltimore.

tincanner• 3 years ago

It's absolutely beyond me that you can't block a YouTube channel.

tssva• 3 years ago

They are suing Google while also using Google for Education and issuing Chromebooks to students.

Eumenes• 3 years ago

School should be suing the FCC or congress for lack of action around social media ... This isn't about change though, its about $$, so yes, go after the companies to "do better"™

jscipione• 3 years ago

Social media is not to blame here, HCPSS is to blame for for promoting homosexuality, sexual degeneracy, and radical gender ideology on its students. It is expected that students are angry, violent, and suicidal given the abuse they have experienced at the hands of the leftist authoritarians running this “school” and to a larger extent the whole country.

https://www.hcpss.org/supports/lgbtqia-youth/

JopV• 3 years ago

“School district creates mental health crisis, shifts blame to Meta, Google and TikTok”

School district sues Meta, Google, and TikTok over ‘mental health crisis’

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