Seattle Sues Big Tech for Poisoning School children

01/07/2023

2 minutes read

2023.01.07 13:02

Budrigannews.com – The Seattle City School District has filed a novel lawsuit accusing Big Tech of poisoning young people with social media addiction. They claim that the schools can’t fulfill their educational mission if students are having mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and other issues.

According to the complaint that was filed late on Friday in Seattle federal court, Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc., and ByteDance Ltd., the owner of TikTok, are responsible for attracting young people to their platforms and causing a mental health crisis. More than a hundred schools and approximately 50,000 children are served by the district.

After numerous families, including more than a dozen who blamed the tech companies for suicides, filed similar claims last year, the suit appears to be the first of its kind in the United States brought by a school district.

Late in 2021, when former Meta employee Frances Haugen released documents about the company’s internal operations, the notion that social media companies bear the responsibility for the potential harm their products cause to young people came to the forefront.

One of Haugen’s claims was that the business was knowingly exploiting vulnerable young people to increase profits. Hearings were held by Congress, and some state attorneys general began looking into the matter.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996 and providing internet platforms with broad immunity from claims regarding user-posted harmful content, serves as the companies’ primary line of defense. They have been shielded from legal claims by the law to such an extent that voices from both the political left and right have called for its reform.

In an email, a Google spokesperson, Jose Castaneda, stated, “We have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well-being.” Through Family Link, for instance, we enable parents to set reminders, restrict screen time, and block particular types of content on supervised devices.

Meta, Snap, and TikTok representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The companies have previously stated that they are working to safeguard their youngest users, including by improving safeguards to prevent the dissemination of harmful content and providing resources on mental health issues.

In addition, the largest public school system in the United States, New York City, this week prohibited its students from accessing the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program to generate text, providing yet another recent illustration of opposition to the way technological advancements are interfering with children’s lives.

In the suit filed on Friday, Seattle School District No. The first is requesting a judge to rule that the businesses have caused a public nuisance and to impose remedies, such as financial damages and funding to treat and prevent excessive social media use.

According to the district, there has been a significant rise in the number of mental health visits to ERs and suicides. It referred to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address from 2022, in which he pleaded with everyone to “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.”

“School District No. According to the complaint, “1 brings this action to do just that.” The same mental health crisis is affecting youth in the plaintiff’s community.