Fast becoming a major issue, school districts throughout the country are suing social media companies, alleging that they have knowingly, deliberately and intentionally contributed to a mental health crisis among the nation’s youth. As of April 2023, more than 40 school districts across the United States have filed a lawsuit against social media giants such as Meta (owner of Facebook), Snap, Alphabet (owner of Google) and TikTok, claiming that these companies are purposefully designing, marketing and promoting their social media products and platforms to be addictive and to deliver harmful content to youth. California alone accounts for close to 30 of these school districts, including all 23 school districts in San Mateo County.

These lawsuits are all similar in nature; they involve similar if not identical claims, rely on the same research data and findings, and seek the same remedies. Generally, the complaints are based on theories of public nuisance, negligence, gross negligence, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) and unfair competition. The remedies sought include abatement (mitigating the effect) of public nuisance, damages and injunctive relief, among others.

The school districts’ complaints connect the explosion of youth mental health issues to excessive use of social media. Typically, the complaints allege that, for profit, social media companies use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to design their platforms to manipulate and exploit the youths and cause them to be addicted to their platforms. By way of illustration, in San Diego County, Oceanside Unified School District’s complaint stated that social media companies “have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of minors, causing millions of students across the United States, […] to become addicted to and excessively using Defendants’ social media platforms.”

Another common theme among the school district complaints is the allegation that the social media companies focus almost exclusively on young people, because, as stated in the San Mateo County complaint, “this market is existential to their business model.” According to the complaint, “The end goal is to make the young people engage with and stay on the platforms as long as possible, because that means they can sell more advertising.” To support their case, school districts base their claims on various studies that have linked the jump in youth mental health issues to the emergence and popularity of social media use among youths.

Districts are experiencing direct and indirect harm due to the surge of mental health issues among their students. Following the return of in-person instruction after the pandemic, schools are seeing mental health-related incidents among students at a crisis level.

Instances of student bullying, cyberbullying, vandalism and dangerous trends such as the “Blackout Challenge” have skyrocketed. The San Mateo County complaint states, for example, that many schools in the county were vandalized in connection with the “Devious Licks” challenge popularized on TikTok, which encouraged students to vandalize their schools. As a result of the direct harm to students and, in many cases, the schools, school districts are having to divert precious resources away from their traditional pedagogical goals to address the crisis.

Since school districts are at the forefront of educating young people, it is at least arguable that they are well-placed to pursue measures to protect their students from a wide array of detrimental mental health disorders such as self-harm, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and suicide, when such disorders are being manifested at school. Taking steps to address the crisis would be consistent with the educational mission of school districts since they are charged with providing their students with a safe and positive school climate.

Local educational agencies are not alone in their concerns. At the federal and state levels, legislative efforts are ongoing to protect young people against what is seen as exploitative behavior by social media companies. The U.S. Senate, for instance, has introduced an amendment to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that, among other things, will nationally ban targeted advertising to children and establish a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens” to limit the collection of teens’ personal information.

At the state level, Assembly Bill 2273, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, was signed into law in August 2022 by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It imposes a number of obligations and restrictions on businesses that provide online services, products or features that are likely to be accessed by children. Such businesses are required to prioritize the best interests of children in designing their services, products or features to ensure that children are not exposed to harmful or potentially harmful content, contact or conduct. In addition, AB 2879, the Cyberbullying Protection Act, requires any social media platform controlled by a business entity grossing $100 million or more to disclose the platform’s cyberbullying reporting procedures in the platform’s terms of service and to establish a mechanism that would allow an individual to report cyberbullying or any content that violates the social media platform’s terms of service. Intentional violation of the new law could subject a social media platform to civil liability.

This new legislation sends a clear message that current conditions with students at school are not sustainable and the social media companies will have to adjust their business model and/or operations. So far, the social media companies have stated that they already have parental controls available on their platforms and that they are continuing to work to remove harmful content. Without more, however, it is unlikely that school districts, federal and state legislators, or parents will be pacified.