California educators sue TikTok, Snap and YouTube for allegedly delivering harmful content to kids

California educators are suing Snap, TikTok and YouTube over allegations they deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive and to ship dangerous content material to youngsters.

The 107-page lawsuit was filed Monday by Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy LLP on behalf of the San Mateo County Board of Education and the superintendent of colleges.

“For the youth focused by social media companies and for the adults charged with their care, the outcomes have been disastrous,” Karin Swope, an lawyer for the agency, stated in a press release. “Excessive use of the YouTube, TikTok, and Snap companies’ platforms by children has become ubiquitous. And now, there are more children struggling with mental health issues than ever before. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for youths.”

The businesses, the swimsuit alleges, use synthetic intelligence and machine studying to ship dangerous content material to youngsters.

Citing a latest examine by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the lawsuit notes suicidal conduct and melancholy amongst youths rose dramatically between 2011 and 2021. This pattern, the grievance contends, corresponds with the discharge and rising recognition of Snap, TikTok and YouTube throughout the identical interval.

The swimsuit claims the three social media firms have additionally brought about “concrete and tangible harm” to varsities in San Mateo County. For instance, a number of colleges have been just lately vandalized in reference to the “Devious Lick” TikTok problem.

“As outlined in the complaint, there is hard science behind the claim that social media is fueling a mental health epidemic in school-age children,” San Mateo County Superintendent of Faculties Nancy McGee stated in a press release.

“Every day, schools are dealing with the fallout, which includes distracted students, increased absences, more children diagnosed with ADHD, cyber-bullying that carries into the classroom, and even physical damage to our San Mateo schools, an example is the vandalism caused by the TikTok so-called “Devious Lick Problem’ firstly of the college yr.”

The lawsuit seeks to curtail the conduct of TikTok, Snap and YouTube, in addition to to recuperate county colleges’ prices to deal with the youth psychological disaster they allegedly brought about.

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