New York City, its school district and healthcare system have filed a lawsuit against Meta, Snap TikTok and YouTube for allegedly contributing to a "youth mental health crisis" with intentionally addictive platforms. The lawsuit is the latest in a long string of legal actions against social media platforms over their handling of safety and other issues facing teens.
The city of New York was joined in the lawsuit by the city's school district and NYC Health + Hospitals, the city's largest public hospital system. The lawsuit alleges that the social media companies have intentionally designed their platforms to be addictive to children and that they have failed to implement effective safeguards.
The companies, the suit claims "have created, caused and contributed to the youth mental health crisis in New York City, causing damage to the public’s health and safety, interfering with the use of public places, including schools, and endangering or injuring the health, safety, comfort or welfare of a considerable number of persons, including youth." It says the city, school district and hospitals have been forced "to devote significant resources—in terms of funding, employees, and time" to address the "youth mental health crisis" caused by the companies.
The lawsuit also specifically calls out the rise of viral posts about "subway surfing" in New York, noting that several teenagers have died attempting the stunt and more than 100 have been arrested. "Significantly, NYPD investigations have determined that the primary motivation of subway surfers is to imitate the subway surfing videos they see on social media, and to collect social media 'likes,'" the lawsuit says. It also claims that teachers and other school staff "experience secondary trauma and burnout associated with responding to students in crisis" due to social media.
Meta, Snap and TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. In a statement, Google spokesperson José Castañeda said that "the allegations are simply not true" and "fundamentally misunderstand" YouTube. "YouTube is a streaming service where people come to watch everything from live sports, to podcasts to their favorite creators, primarily on TV screens, not a social network where people go to catch up with friends," he said. "We've also developed dedicated tools like Supervised Experiences for young people, guided by child safety experts, that give families control."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/new-york-city-is-suing-meta-snap-tiktok-and-youtube-over-youth-mental-health-crisis-223916712.html?src=rss
