Section 230 ‘No Shield’ for Harm That Social Media Causes Youth: Suit

The Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 is “no shield” for the design, marketing and operations of social media platforms “that are harmful to youth,” alleged Kent School District No. 415 in suburban Seattle in a complaint Monday (docket 2:23-cv-00045) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington. It names ByteDance, Google, Meta, Snap and their various subsidiaries, including Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, as defendants.

Section 230 doesn't shield the defendants’ conduct from the harm it causes young people because the defendants “are liable for their own actions designing and marketing their social media platforms in a way that causes harm,” said the complaint. They also are liable for distributing, delivering and transmitting material “that they know or have reason to know is harmful, unlawful, and/or tortious,” it said.

The complaint seeks an order saying the social media networks violate the Washington Public Nuisance Law, plus an injunction barring them from continuing their allegedly harmful behavior. None of the defendants named in the complaint responded to requests for comment.

The defendants “have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse” of their social media platforms, alleged the complaint. They have maximized the time users, especially young users, spend on their platforms “by purposely designing, refining, and operating them to exploit the neurophysiology of the brain’s reward systems to keep users coming back,” it said.

A Northern California plaintiff filed a complaint against Meta last week on behalf of himself and his young daughter, complete with clinical commentary on how Instagram use triggers allegedly harmful chemical reactions in the brains of adolescents (see 2301060047).

The social media platforms’ misconduct “has been a substantial factor in causing a youth mental health crisis, which has been marked by higher and higher proportions of youth struggling with anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, and suicidal ideation,” said the Kent school district. The COVID-19 pandemic and the “corresponding increase” in time that youth spend on the platforms “has only intensified this crisis,” it said. Kent described itself as the fifth-largest school district in Washington, with 25,000 students.

Students experiencing anxiety, depression and other mental health issues “perform worse in school,” are less likely to attend class and are more likely “to engage in substance use,” said the complaint. Kent schools, like 96% of others in the U.S., provides mental health services to its students, and “trains its teachers and staff to screen students for mental health symptoms,” it said. But Kent “needs a comprehensive, long-term plan and funding to drive a sustained reduction in the record rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other tragic indices of the mental health crisis its youth are experiencing at Defendants’ hands,” it said.

One of the primary reasons the use of social media is associated with “depressive symptoms” among adolescents is “because it encourages unhealthy social comparison and feedback seeking behaviors,” said the complaint. “Because adolescents spend a majority of their time on social media looking at other users’ profiles and photos, they are likely to engage in negative comparisons with their peers.”

Clinicians have also documented “a clear relationship between youth social media use and disordered eating behavior,” said the complaint. “The more social media accounts an adolescent has, the greater disordered eating behaviors they exhibit.” Research also shows that the more time young girls spend on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, “the more likely they are to develop disordered eating behaviors,” it said.

School districts are “uniquely harmed” by the current youth mental health crisis, said the complaint. “This is because schools are one of the main providers for mental health services for school-aged children.” But schools are “struggling” to keep up “because of the increase in students seeking these services,” it said. Studies found more than two-thirds of public schools reported an increase in the percent of students seeking mental health services from school since the start of the pandemic, it said.

Authorities in Washington’s King County, where the Kent school district is located, recently allocated $2 million for mental health “first aid” and suicide prevention for youth, said the complaint. But Kent schools require “significantly greater and long-term funding to address the nuisance” that the defendants’ social media platforms have created, it said.