Two school districts sue social media companies alleging harm to youth mental health

Two Ventura County school districts are suing the companies behind Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, arguing the social media giants are partly responsible for a national epidemic of youth mental illness.

Conejo Valley and Simi Valley unified school districts are joining roughly 675 school districts in 32 states organized by the San Diego-based Frantz Law Group to sue the social media companies in both federal and state court.

Frantz attorney William Shinoff said more local school districts are considering lawsuits and that state and local governments could follow, depending on how judges rule in early hearings.

Shinoff said the suit does not target Twitter because there was less evidence that the company targeted youth and because districts told his firm that fewer students were on that platform than the ones named.

Conejo Valley Unified signed on to the suit June 21, with trustees voting 4-1 to approve a lawsuit during a board meeting. Attorneys submitted a 96-page lawsuit on July 10 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Simi Valley Unified followed during a board meeting on Sept. 12, voting unanimously to initiate a suit. That lawsuit has yet to appear in court records, though Superintendent Hani Youssef said it would be filed within 30 days of the vote.

The companies, the Conejo Valley Unified suit says, intentionally target "vulnerable" minors with algorithms in an attempt to keep them online as much as possible, "causing millions of students across the United States, including in (Conejo Valley Unified), to become addicted to and excessively use the Defendants' social media platforms."

Those platforms and their sometimes "harmful and exploitive" content are at least in part responsible for what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a 2021 report were "alarming" increases in youth mental health challenges over the previous decade, the suit says.

The lawsuit, which Shinoff said will be combined with roughly 300 similar suits so far filed in the same court, asks the court to force the social media companies to change harmful policies and to pay districts unspecified compensation for the resources they've used to treat student mental illness.

"I don't know how many counselors we can hire," Youssef, the Simi Valley Superintendent, said of his district's attempts to respond to student mental illness. "There is no oversight. Our students, my own kids, are exposed to whatever pops up on social media, to harmful content."

Lauren Gill, president of the Conejo Valley Unified board, said litigation was a last resort, but that the district's data — and stories from the students themselves — confirmed that social media was harming students.

"When legislation fails, when regulation fails, when companies don't hold themselves to account, we're down to the last option," she said. "If we don't hold those harm-doers to account, then who does?"

Gill said the district hoped the courts could stop the harm and help the district recoup money it has spent taking care of its students.

"We have to spend on wellness and putting our kids back together," she said. "If we are able to recoup some of those taxpayer funds that we paid, that seems fair to me."

Frantz also represented nearly 1,000 districts in proceedings against vape manufacturer Juul, Inc. Shinoff said that, combined with lawsuits from thousands of individuals and local governments and 47 states and territories, led to nearly $3 billion worth of settlement payouts.

Shinoff said the new social media lawsuits rely on similar legal arguments to the Juul suit, which argued that the company had targeted minors with its advertising, knowing that its product was harmful to them.

Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. Reach him at isaiah.murtaugh@vcstar.com or 805-437-0236 and follow him on Twitter @isaiahmurtaugh and @vcsschools. You can support this work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Two school districts sue social media giants over youth mental health