15 More School Districts File Negligence Suits Vs. Social Media in S.F. Court

Sixteen U.S. school districts joined the mounting wave of lawsuits against social media platforms Wednesday, as budget-strapped schools seek to hold tech companies responsible for rising costs associated with surging student mental health issues. San Diego-based Frantz Law filed 15 cases for school districts in California, Idaho, Oklahoma, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Utah, charging Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, Google, Snapchat and TikTok with violations of public nuisance laws, negligence and racketeering. A similar complaint was filed in Kentucky.

The largely cookie-cutter complaints -- filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco where over 100 similar cases have been consolidated under U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (see 2304060052) -- allege social media defendants will raise Section 230 of the Communications Act as “a shield for their conduct.”

But “section 230 is no shield” for social media platforms’ “own acts in designing, marketing, and operating social media platforms that are harmful to youth,” say the complaints. Congress enacted Section 230 to address harms associated with certain content and “drafted to limit liability for ‘Good Samaritans’ seeking to restrict such harmful content,” they said. Section 230 provides immunity from liability only to “(1) a provider or user of an interactive computer service (2) whom a plaintiff seeks to treat, under a state law cause of action, as a publisher or speaker (3) of information provided by another information content provider,” said plaintiffs, citing Barnes v. Yahoo.

Publication generally involves traditional editorial functions, such as reviewing, editing and deciding whether to publish or to withdraw from publication of third-party content, the complaints said, but doesn't include duties of “designing and marketing a social media platform.” Section 230 “does not immunize Defendants’ conduct” because social media companies are liable for their own affirmative conduct in “recommending and promoting harmful content to youth,” say the complaints, and they're liable for their actions designing their platforms “in a way that causes harm.” Defendants are liable for the content they create that causes harm and for distributing, delivering and transmitting material “that they know or have reason to know is harmful, unlawful, and/or tortious.”

Defendants recommend and promote harmful content to minors, such as “pro-anorexia and eating disorder content” and Snapchat filters that promote plastic surgery or “body dysmorphia,” the complaints allege. Defendants’ algorithms and design features “encourage users to spend the maximum amount of time on their platforms,” they said. Algorithms promote content that “will trigger a particular user’s attention and maximize their use of the platform.” Defendants, “indifferent to the nature of the content they promote to users,” are “content neutral,” they said.

Social media companies are liable for the content they create, such as filters “that promote body dysmorphia," but also for emails and notifications they send to youth that often promote “harmful content,” plaintiffs allege. The school districts don’t hold defendants liable as publishers or speakers but “for distributing material they know or should know is harmful or unlawful."

In the case of plaintiff Tulsa Public Schools, which has 33,211 students in 69 schools, the district had an uptick in students “in crises, acting out, vandalizing school property and in need of mental health services,” said the complaint (docket 3:23-cv-01763). Like other districts, Tulsa had to hire additional personnel to address mental, emotional and social health issues caused by social media companies’ “wrongful conduct.”

In Kentucky, law firm Hendy Johnson filed its fifth public nuisance lawsuit against social media companies, and second this week, on behalf of a state school district. Rockcastle Public Schools in Mount Vernon, with over 2,700 students in six schools, seeks an injunction against social media platforms’ public nuisance actions and equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for “excessive and problematic use of social media,” said the Wednesday complaint (docket 6:23-cv-00055) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky in London.