BOONE COUNTY, Ky. (WXIX) – Boone County Schools, acting out of the district’s “responsibility to protect its students,” could soon launch a lawsuit against social media companies.
A board meeting was held Thursday night to discuss the resolution, which would authorize the district to sue “any appropriate parties.” It specifically lists five companies: Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat and Youtube.
“[S]ocial media platforms are substantially contributing to the mental health crisis America’s youth are facing,” a BCSD Board of Education resolution notes.
The BCSD board resolution premises the district’s standing to sue on the “significant impact” the “crisis” of “overexposure to social media” has had on schools, which are a main provider of mental health services for school-aged children.
The district believes it is entitled to compensation and injunctive relief for the resources and time it expends addressing and treating social media’s negative mental health outcomes, per the resolution.
[8 Boone County students cited in connection with viral TikTok trend]
The resolution describes the social media companies as “exploitative” and “addictive.” It argues the platforms are intentionally engineered, designed and marketed to produce the very mental health outcomes with which research shows they’re associated: “eating disorders, violence, self-harm and suicide.”
The district cites data showing half of all Kentucky teenagers spend more than an hour per day—and 30 percent spend more than three hours per day—on social media.
“Defendants have designed their platforms so that users constantly feel the need to be on it,” the resolution reads.
Louisville attorney Ronald Johnson and his firm, Hendy Johnson Vaughn and Emery, would sue on the board’s behalf. He says the lawsuit could be filed in a matter of days if the Boone County Board of Education passes the authorizing resolution Thursday.
Johnson says his firm is representing more than a dozen districts throughout Kentucky in similar lawsuits. Among them are Jefferson County Public Schools and Fayette County Public Schools, the largest districts in the state.
BCSD would join a growing list of schools across the country seeking to hold social media companies responsible for their alleged psychological harms. But those lawsuits might not rest on the soundest legal footing—yet.
Federal law, the infamous section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, generally protects social media companies from litigation arising from content created by their users. That law, however, has generated criticism and calls for change amid the rise of platforms like Tiktok and Instagram.
A Facebook whistleblower testified before Congress in 2021 that Facebook, which also owns Instagram, knowingly permits the spread of content that harms children. Around the same time, the Wall Street Journal published a report titled: “Facebook Knows Instagram is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show.”
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee held an hours-long hearing on the harms of social media platforms, underscoring bipartisan support for action, according to a Roll Call report.
“Big tech has relentlessly, ruthlessly pumped up profits by purposefully exploiting kids and [their] parents’ pain,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said.
Dr. Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer at the American Psychological Association, offered nuanced and illuminating testimony in that hearing, saying social media may particularly exploit the vulnerable years of adolescence “during which youth may be especially motivated to pursue social rewards and not yet [be] fully capable of restraining themselves.”
Prinstein testified social media actually changes pathways in the brain, leading teens to respond to “illegal, dangerous imagery” with fewer inhibitions and promoting “dangerous and risk-taking behavior.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has proposed a set of reforms to section 230, which Blumenthal described in that hearing as “unconscionably excessive.”
At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating on a case that could carve out an enormous exception to section 230, allowing companies to be sued for making “targeted recommendations of information” (i.e. algorithmic recommendations).
Meanwhile, a nationwide ban on Tiktok could be approaching due to mental health concerns as well as fears about Chinese surveillance. Montana lawmakers passed a general ban on the app Thursday.
Separately, a piece of legislation known as the Kids Online Safety Act would add safeguards for children online. The bill languished after Blumenthal introduced it early last year, but it could be reintroduced in 2023.
School districts like Boone County’s have decided not to wait. Whether they’ll prevail remains unclear.
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