Social Media Litigation Public entities are faced with a significant challenge that needs to be addressed immediately. This challenge arises from the mental health crisis of youth and students that has been caused by social media companies and their alleged deceptive products and platforms.
As to the scope of the mental health crisis caused by social media, the CDC National Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that the rate of teen depression rose by more than 60% between 2011 and 2018. Further, the United States Surgeon General has declared a national advisory on the youth mental health crisis, blaming social media, in part, for the growing number of youths experiencing depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges. Frantz Law Group has extensive legal experience representing public entities such as school districts, states, counties and cities with respect to false and misleading marketing. To assist public entities in addressing this mental health crisis caused by social media companies, Frantz Law Group has commenced litigation (on behalf of public entities) against Meta, TikTok, Snap, YouTube, and others. This lawsuit alleges, in part, that various social media companies have caused a mental health crisis among children and teenagers that is marked by higher proportions of anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self-harm, all of which severely affect their ability to succeed in school. Suing social media companies provides public entities the opportunity to recover financial reimbursement for the expenses the public entities have incurred because of the youth mental health crisis. Some entities have spent thousands of dollars, countless hours, and other important resources to implement or adjust their methods of supervising students, disciplining student behavior, and assisting addicted students who are constantly accessing social media platforms on school property. Even if your public entity has not yet expended substantial resources to deal with this problem, investigating claims and potentially filing a lawsuit can assist to obtain the “future damages” to mitigate the social media-caused mental health crisis present in your public entity. Beyond the opportunity for financial recovery, public entity participation in this litigation is critical. Social media companies have targeted children with addictive and harmful products that feature no warnings or instructions for safe usage. Public entities have been especially impacted and are in a unique position to take a stand against this misconduct. Public entities joining together in this litigation will play a pivotal role in holding social media companies accountable and sending the message to these companies that profits should not be prioritized at the expense of children’s health and safety. Social media companies need to be held accountable for the harm they are causing and should provide schools with financial resources to mitigate this mental health crisis on the front lines.
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