Schools in Seattle sue tech firms over harm

Seattle's public school district has filed a lawsuit against some Big Tech companies, claiming their social media platforms are responsible for the mental health crisis among youth.

The complaint filed on Friday said social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok have violated Washington state's public nuisance law and created public nuisance by targeting their products to children.

The district asks the court to order remedies, including monetary damages and funding for prevention education and treatment for excessive use of social media.

The school district includes more than 100 schools and serves about 50,000 children. The complaint said that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30 percent increase in the number of 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 suit blames those companies for worsening the students' mental health and behavioral disorders, including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying.

'Health crisis'

Nearly 1 in 10 people in the United States and almost 1 in 5 adolescents and young adults reported having depression in 2020, but most of the victims were not seeking help, resulting in an "escalating public health crisis", according to a recent study published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The idea that social media companies should be held accountable for the potential damage their products caused to young people surfaced after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in 2021 that the tech firm is aware that some of its platforms are harmful to certain populations, including teenagers, but targets them anyway.

Many families have filed similar lawsuits against the tech companies, including more than a dozen blaming them for suicides.

The New York City public school system has also pushed back against the impact of social media on students' lives. The schools have banned their students from accessing the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program to generate text.

Google responded to the allegations by saying they have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children. Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, said it has more than 30 tools to support teenagers and families.

Agencies contributed to this story.