'Mental health crisis': Meta, Google & TikTok to face addiction claims

By Isaiah Poritz

 

Meta Platforms Inc., Google, TikTok and Snap will have to face lawsuits brought by school districts in federal court blaming their “addictive” apps for contributing to a mental health crisis among students.  

The ruling Thursday by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, follows a contrasting June 7 decision by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in favour of the companies. The split leaves the platforms potentially on the hook for damages in more than 150 cases before Rogers even as they’re poised to dodge liability for claims in more than 600 other cases filed in Los Angeles.

 

Rogers generally denied a request for dismissal of negligence claims, but narrowed the scope of allegations that will proceed. She concluded that some claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a longstanding federal law shielding internet companies from lawsuits.

 

The ruling comes just over a week after Rogers ruled that Meta must face a lawsuit by dozens of state attorneys general alleging it knowingly hooked kids on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

 

The companies also face significant exposure from hundreds of personal injury suits accusing them of designing their platforms to encourage youths to spend unhealthy amounts of time on screens and suffering emotional trauma as a result. But the school cases may carry bigger potential damages because each district seeks to recoup institutional costs from the negative repercussions of having hundreds of individual students hooked on social media. 

 

The school districts alleged that 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. 

 

Rogers said 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.

 

The companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

The Los Angeles and Oakland judges are overseeing separate batches of personal injury suits by youths and families alleging that the social media companies are responsible for causing widespread psychological distress and even suicides. The companies have denied wrongdoing, saying they’ve taken steps to keep young users safe on the platforms.

 

The federal case is In Re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, 22-md-03047, US District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).

 

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