Social Media Sites' Divisive, Harmful Content a Threat to Kids: School Board

Safe and healthy social media use by youth “lies in stark contrast with the deliberate design of algorithms” that flood kids with “divisive and harmful” content, alleged a Thursday class action (docket 4:23-cv-01061) brought by the Broward County, Florida, School Board against Facebook, TikTok, Google and Snap in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland.

Social media platforms’ algorithms that promote and amplify harmful content in ways designed to be addictive are especially dangerous to youth, who use social media heavily and are “more vulnerable because their brains are still developing,” said the complaint. “Social apps hijack a tween and teen compulsion -- to connect -- that can be even more powerful than hunger or greed,” it said, citing a 2018 Daily Beast article on smartphone addiction.

The complaint cited Facebook researchers’ warnings of the dangers of systems designed to deliver increasingly divisive content to increase users’ time on the platform. “A flicker of anger is amplified to wildfire because people pay attention to fire,” it said. Extreme, sensationalist views, designed to exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of social media users, are algorithmically promoted and amplified in ways that encourage children and teens to spend more time on the platforms, it said.

Broward County Public Schools “have borne painful witness to all of this, firsthand, to devastating effect,” said the complaint, citing the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in 2018 that killed 17, when shooter Nikolas Cruz left behind YouTube comments expressing a desire to “kill people,” the complaint said. It cited a viral trend called “devious licks,” in which kids destroyed school property in order to share the footage on TikTok. Another TikTok video threatened violence in Broward schools in 2021, “creating the need for increased police presence.”

Like virtually all U.S. districts today, Broward County schools “are forced to address a high degree of distraction, depression, suicidality” and other mental disorders suffered by children and worsened by the “overconsumption of social media on a daily basis,” the complaint said. The district’s schools have been forced to include in their core mission “the interim guardrail of providing 95% of staff with youth mental health training by 2025,” it said.

The complaint doesn’t seek to disparage, discipline or discourage technology, the complaint said, calling social media “an amazing tool for learnings and growth for entrepreneurship and showcasing one’s skills.” But flooding children with divisive and harmful content and addicting them for the sake of profit are having “deep and dangerous ramifications” on youth and communities, it said. Social media companies should take measures to “stem the tide of the mental health crisis afflicting America’s social media-addicted youth.”

Plaintiffs don’t allege defendants are liable for what third parties have said on social media platforms but for their conduct in amplifying it and promoting the most harmful content in ways that are addictive to youth, the complaint said. They are liable for the content they create, it said. Snapchat filters, it gave as an example, “promote body dysmorphia.” Rather than holding defendants liable as publishers for the content on their platforms, plaintiffs seek to make them liable for “distributing material they know or should know is harmful or unlawful in ways designed to be addictive for youth.”

The school board claims negligence against the defendants and violation of the Florida Public Nuisance Law and Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA). It seeks an order requiring defendants to “abate the public nuisance described,” and an injunction from violating the FDUTPA and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Other school districts have filed similar lawsuits (see 2303030065).