Dozen More Public Nuisance Suits Filed Thursday vs. Social Media

Eleven Kentucky school districts and one in Oregon added their names Thursday to the ranks of districts nationwide bringing lawsuits against social media companies for their alleged roles in a growing youth mental health crisis in the U.S.

The Thursday lawsuits were separate from the more than 140 cases combined by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation under U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for Northern California in Oakland.

The Kentucky cases were filed by attorney Ronald Johnson of Hendy Johnson, Louisville, against Meta, Google, Siculus, Snap and TikTok companies. The Gervais School District case (docket 6:23-cv-00455) in Oregon was filed by Keller Rohrback's Yoona Park, who also filed a public nuisance and negligence lawsuit against the social media companies on behalf of Salem-Keizer Public Schools, Marion County, Oregon, March 14 (see 2303150063).

Plaintiff Gervais School District anticipates defendants will raise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a shield for their conduct, said the complaint. Plaintiff noted Section 230 provides immunity from liability only to “(1) a provider or user of an interactive computer service, (2) whom a plaintiff seeks to treat, under a state law cause of action, as a publisher or speaker or (3) of information provided by another information content provider,” citing Barnes v. Yahoo.

Publication generally involves traditional editorial functions but doesn't include designing and marketing a social media platform, said the complaint. Section 230 doesn't shield defendants’ conduct because they're liable for their own affirmative conduct in recommending and promoting harmful content to youth; their own actions designing and marketing their platforms in a way that causes harm; the content they create that causes harm; and for distributing, delivering and transmitting material they know is harmful, it said.

Gervais School District brings claims of public nuisance and negligence and seeks orders that defendants are jointly and severally liable, that they abate the public nuisance and are enjoined from further actions. They seek equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media and actual, compensatory and punitive damages, plus attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

In the nearly identical Kentucky school district complaints, plaintiffs cited the “mental health crisis” among America’s youth, noted by pediatrics associations and the U.S. surgeon general, involving anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation. They linked rising mental health issues with the advent of social media platforms.

One noticeable difference among the Kentucky complaints was whether a school district had implemented a program to address social media issues. The Breathitt County Public Schools, for instance, implemented programs “in an attempt to deter and mitigate bullying and cyber abuse,” said the complaint (docket 5:23-cv-00102). The Bullitt (docket 3:23-cv-00152) and Martin (docket 7:23-cv-00026) school district complaints, along with Breathitt, provide mental health services to students and are having to monitor and address issues that arise on social media platforms, they said.

The Kentucky cases say the school districts’ budgets aren’t adequate to address the mental health crisis and they need “significantly more funding” than they have to implement “potentially lifesaving programs” to deal with the crisis that “Defendants helped create.”

Social media platforms exploit the “same neural circuitry” as gambling and recreational drugs “to keep consumers using their products as much as possible,” said the Kentucky complaints, citing Addictioncenter.com. Ninety percent of kids 13-17 use social media, 38% of those 8-12, 49% of those 10-12 and 32% of kids 7-9 use the platforms, the complaint said, referencing several studies. Many kids log onto social media several times a day and “some teenagers never stop looking at social media,” it said, citing a 2022 Pew Research Center report.

Snap targeted a younger audience by designing Snapchat in a manner “that older individuals find hard to use,” said the complaint, citing a Financial Times article. That makes the platform a place where “young users are insulated from older users including their parents,” it said. Snap is a “haven for young users to hide content from their parents by ensuring that photos, videos and chat messages quickly disappear.”

The complaints referred to TikTok’s algorithm, coupled with its design elements, as a reward-based learning process that facilitates formation of “habit loops” that “encourage excessive use.” The platform's “never-ending stream” of video clips “causes harmful and exploitive content to be amplified to the young market it has cultivated,” said the complaints. A 2021 Wall Street Journal report used bots to simulate teen TikTok users and found that over 45 days, TikTok “inundated” the accounts with over 32,000 weight-loss videos, many promoting fasting, weight-loss tips and weight-loss detox programs, the complaints said. Some videos encouraged purging, water-only regimens and other hazardous diets, it said.

YouTube’s algorithms “push its young users down rabbit holes,” said the complaints. They cited research by the Tech Transparency Project saying YouTube Kids fed children content involving drug culture, guns, and beauty and diet tips “that could lead to harmful body image issues.” Videos included instructions on how to conceal a gun and bleach one’s face, they said.

Meta’s amplification algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram can “push teens into darker and darker places,” said the complaints, citing an October 2021 Senate hearing. They could start off viewing healthy recipes and arrive at “anorexia promoting content over a very short period of time,” they said.

The Kentucky school districts seek an injunction against the social media platforms enjoining them from further actions and orders that their conduct is a public nuisance under state law; that the defendants are jointly and severally liable; and that they abate the public nuisance and prevent its resumption. They seek equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; and attorneys’ fees and legal costs.