New York City is taking action against social media over new health crisis.
On behalf of the school district and Health and Hospital Corporation, the state filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court on Wednesday (Feb. 14) against TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube, accusing the social media platforms of contributing to a “nationwide youth mental health crisis.”
According to a press release from the office of Mayor Eric Adams, the lawsuit alleges that the companies knowingly designed their platforms to be addictive and harmful to children and teens.
The city is suing social media platforms for the role they played in causing mental health issues among students. The lawsuit is in early stages and the court will determine its validity and potential consequences for the companies.
The city alleges that social media companies use algorithms to keep users compulsively engaged, and manipulate them with features like automatic notifications and push notifications.
“Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis,” said Mayor Adams.
Attorney Sylvia Hinds-Radix from New York City claims that the platforms benefit from the health and wellness of young people.
Hinds-Radix said: “These companies have chosen profit over the wellbeing of children by intentionally designing their platforms with manipulative and addictive features and using harmful algorithms targeted to young people. Social media companies should be held accountable for this misconduct and for the harms they cause to our children, schools, and entire communities.”
Snapchat would be one of the several social media platforms to respond to the state’s claims. Ashley Adams, a spokeswoman for Snap Inc, shared the following statement with ABC News.
“Snapchat was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media, with a focus on helping Snapchatters communicate with their close friends. Snapchat opens directly to a camera – rather than a feed of content that encourages passive scrolling – and has no traditional public likes or comments.”
Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, highlighted their safety tools and features for teenagers and parents.
Meta spokesperson said: “We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools and features to support them and their parents.”
“We regularly partner with experts to understand emerging best practices, and will continue to work to keep our community safe by tackling industry-wide challenges,” said TikTok spokesperson.
Google’s Jose Castañeda said: “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience online has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we’ve built services and policies to give young people age-appropriate experiences, and parents robust controls. The allegations in this complaint are simply not true.”
On Wednesday, the Mayor’s office said the city spends $100 million annually on youth mental health programs and services.
“We are filing litigation today demanding that companies be held accountable for their platform’s damage and influence on the mental health of our young people, and while seeking to recover the cost of addressing this ongoing public health threat as well,” said Adams.
Still developing…