The four largest school boards in the Canadian province of Ontario have launched lawsuits against TikTok, Meta, and SnapChat. They claim that social media platforms interfere with the learning process. The plaintiffs are seeking damages of more than 4 billion Canadian dollars ($2.9 billion) for disrupting student learning and the education system. No money will be paid to the lawyers handling these lawsuits unless they win.
The lawsuits allege that platforms like Facebook and Instagram, «designed to be coercive, have changed the way children think, behave, and learn» and teachers must face the consequences.
Rachel Chernos, a trustee of the Toronto District School Board, said teachers and parents are noticing social withdrawal, anxiety, attention problems, cyberbullying, and mental health issues.
«These companies have deliberately created programs that are addictive and targeted at young people, this is causing significant harm, we simply cannot stand by and not talk about it anymore,» Chernos says.
Dozens of US states, including California and New York, are also suing Meta for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and intentionally creating features on Instagram and Facebook that cause children to become addicted to their platforms.
Duncan Ambery, a lawyer at the firm representing the Canadian plaintiffs, says that there is a real problem of addiction to the algorithms developed by Meta. In his opinion, proper warnings are needed, the age parameters need to be changed, and the level of resources that school boards will receive to adapt to the new reality needs to be increased. He says that companies have deliberately and negligently designed their products to maximize the amount of time young people spend on their platforms at the expense of their well-being and education.
This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning social media accounts for children under 14 and requiring parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds. It goes into effect on January 1 and is expected to face legal challenges.
Source: Associated Press