Mental Health Crisis: Carson City School District enters mass lawsuit against social media companies
The Carson City School District will be entering a “Mass Action Lawsuit” against several social media companies, joining districts nationwide.
What the lawsuit is asking for is changes to online practices pertaining to cyberbullying and online harassment on social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube and more, as well as payment to the increased expense undertaken by schools to deal with higher levels of anxiety, depression and self-harm caused, they say, by social media.
The Carson City School Board voted to authorize Superintendent AJ Feuling to enter the lawsuit with California-based law firm Frantz Law Group, joining eight other Nevada districts statewide and over 40 districts nationwide.
“There needs to be changes in how social media companies target our youth because of the impact it is having on them,” Feuling said.
Districts purport they’ve had to spend more time and resources on mental health for students specifically due to online harassment and destructive content on social media platforms.
For example, Feuling said, investigation by schools into just one incident of cyberbullying due to social media platforms can take between four to eight hours to complete.
Feuling also said that secondary school principals are spending “95 percent plus” of their time specifically dealing with online bullying claims.
“There’s so much of (cyberbullying) that comes back to social media and … the irresponsible use of it,” Feuling said.
The lawsuit claims that social media companies have created a “mental health crisis” in children and teens 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, according to Feuling.
Some of the issues children are teens are being subjected to on social media, Feuling read from the lawsuit letter, are accounts or content encouraging disordered eating, unhealthy social comparison, destructive and/or violent acts, encouraging students damage school property or physically harm teachers, and more.
There is no financial cost to the district; instead, the Frantz Law Group agrees to take 25 percent of “any monetary settlement or recovery” on behalf of the district.
You can learn more about the entire lawsuit, which has collected over 40 school districts and 235 plaintiffs nationwide, on K-12DIVE.