By COLlive reporter
New York City officials announced the filing of a lawsuit to hold five social media platforms — TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube — accountable for what they called “fueling the nationwide youth mental health crisis” on Wednesday.
The city is joining hundreds of school districts from across the country in filing litigation seeking to force tech giants to change their behavior and to recover the costs of addressing this public health threat, a statement said. The city spends more than $100 million on youth mental health programs and services each year.
The lawsuit was filed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Corporation Counsel Sylvia O. Hinds Radix, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan, NYC Health + Hospitals President Dr. Michell Katz, and New York City Department of Education (DOE) Chancellor David C. Banks.
To help address this ongoing crisis and the harm caused by these platforms, Mayor Adams also released a social media action plan, “New York City’s Role in the National Crisis of Social Media and Youth Mental Health: Framework for Action, to hold social media companies accountable, provide education and support to young people and families, and study the long-term impacts of social media on youth.
The announcement builds on the Health Commissioner’s Advisory issued last month, identifying unfettered access to and use of social media as a public health hazard, just as past U.S. surgeons general have done with tobacco and firearms.
The advisory provides recommendations to parents and caregivers, health care providers, educators, and policymakers on actions that can be taken to protect children, including the recommendation to delay social media use until the age of 14.
“Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis,” said Mayor Adams.
“Social media companies like TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Meta are fueling a national youth mental health crisis,” said Corporation Counsel Hinds-Radix. “These companies have chosen profit over the wellbeing of children by intentionally designing their platforms with manipulative and addictive features and using harmful algorithms targeted to young people. Social media companies should be held accountable for this misconduct and for the harms they cause to our children, schools, and entire communities.”
“This is about protecting our young people,” said City Hall Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg. “The U.S. surgeon general was right to say this is ‘just not a fair fight.’ The best product developers in the world have designed addictive feeds and features to maximize the amount of time young people spend on the platform — leaving parents, young people, teachers, and emergency rooms to deal with the harmful consequences. Real relief is needed and real change from the social media companies is long past due.”
“Social media is a toxin in our digital environment, like lead, air pollution, and nicotine are in our physical one,” said DOHMH Commissioner Dr. Vasan. “Environmental toxins require regulation, control, and mitigation, and public health must build on its environmental health legacy to address this modern threat. New York City is employing a wide array of tools to fight back, including education and awareness, research, and regulation, and this lawsuit is the latest example of our city’s commitment to ensure young people are safe from the impacts of social media on mental health and wellbeing. The laissez-faire days for tech giants must end and expecting them to self-regulate is naïve. As a parent and as the city’s doctor, to protect the public’s health, we will not remain idle while these platforms damage the health of our children.”
The lawsuit — filed in California Superior Court by the City of New York, the DOE (the largest school district in the nation), and NYC H+H (the country’s largest public hospital system) — seeks to hold the companies operating TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube accountable for their role creating the youth mental health crisis in New York City.
The lawsuit alleges that companies intentionally designed their platforms to purposefully manipulate and addict children and teens to social media applications with features that include:
- Using algorithms to generate feeds that keep users on the platforms longer and encourage compulsive use.
- Using mechanics akin to gambling in the design of apps, which allow for anticipation and craving for “likes” and “hearts,” and also provides continuous, personalized streams of content and advertisements.
- Manipulating users through reciprocity — a social force, especially powerful among teenagers, that describes how people feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action. These platforms take advantage of reciprocity by, for example, automatically telling the sender when their message was seen or sending notifications when a message was delivered, encouraging teens to return to the platform again and again and perpetuating online engagement and immediate responses.
- The complaint specifically states the companies’ intentional conduct and negligence has been a substantial factor in fueling a youth mental health crisis, which constitutes a public nuisance affecting schools, public hospitals, and communities citywide, and, as a result, that the city has had to expend significant resources to address.
In New York City, over 38 percent of high school students reported feeling so sad or hopeless during the past year that they stopped engaging in their usual activities. The rate of hopelessness among New York City high schoolers in 2021 was almost 50 percent higher for Latino and Black students than for white students, and almost 70 percent higher for female students than for male students.
Today, over one-third of 13- to 17-year-old children nationwide report using social media “almost constantly” and admit this is “too much.” Yet, more than half of these kids report that they would struggle to cut back on their social media use. Likewise, in 2021, 77 percent of New York City high school students reported spending an average of three or more hours per school day in front of screens — not including time spent on schoolwork.
Finally someone taking a stand to make change in this insane world!
…he could “take a stand” about things that are in his bailiwick as mayor? Things like the crime rate? It’s usually the case that when a mayor or other local official is pontificating about some National or global issue, it’s little more than an attempt to cover up their incompetence at their actual job.
Or to quote Victor Davis Hanson: “Quite simply, the next time your elected local or state official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement, bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.”
Now parents , teachers , rabbeim and everyone in between. Stop trying to find “good “‘ reasons you need to be on social media and be a TRUE, proper example to your and our children. It doesn’t help our children’s mental health when all their adults and every person walking the street and the halls of their school is distracted.
So many of the so called “ mental health champions “ are on their phones and social media all day. To understand mental health is to understand that we need to be present for ourselves ( our own mental health ) and be present for our students and loved ones ( their mental health).
Smiling at their phone , what their selfies really look like , how people interpret their posts, nearly bumping into people as they walk , the distraught look of their spouse , or friend when they are distracted yet again , their child’s sad eyes as they wait to share a thought or feel sick as parent is scrolling , chatting about a party while waiting at a levaya , shopping Amazon during the bas mitzvah girls speech and the instagram scrolling sitting at a wedding … and the list goes on and on …. The video would be quite… Read more »
Our own Children and teens are in psych wards all over the country. Some started serving kosher while kosher options are opening as well. How bad do things have to get before we make some real changes. ( like everything else change starts with ourselves- we model healthy things , our children and students will follow suit )
Ah yes, it’s all social media’s fault that 1 year out from covid we had insane numbers of school aged children feeling hopeless. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that their schools were shut for months on end while the government and unions used school closure as a battering ram against their political opponents. (This isn’t to say that social media isn’t to blame for the mental health crisis in a huge way, but let’s not forget the part the city had to play in this as well). Additionally, top down government intervention is rarely successful… Read more »
Do they sue the average film company that makes totally inappropriate children’s movies? No. Do they sue ridiculous politicians that are terrible for everyone’s mental health? No.
Yes there are dangers, but don’t watch if you know what’s good for you! Suing is quite off target.
People need to take responsibility for their actions and learn to control themselves, or the next step will probably be suing teachers for the decline in a child’s mental health. Grow up world!
how totally inappropriate and irresponsible to say this! I’m so glad the Mayor is doing something! More than our own leaders and Rabbanim are doing about this tragic issue! A child should “control themselves” around a phone??? Their brains are not even fully developed until age 25, and social media aps make their product addictive on purpose and target our children. It’s like giving a child a lit cigarette and telling them not to get addicted!
Take this from it…
YOU should control yourself around phones, get a filter and use for what you need.
And educate your child that they do NOT need a phone, how to deal with peer pressure etc
Ditto for drugs and cigarettes.
It’s an attitude.
Right, and it’s on parents not to cave to peer pressure and give their kids phones. Suing social media companies does nothing to address the root of the issue and frankly it’s not the governments responsibility to parent your kids
I don’t think you would.say this if you actually had kids. You would be VERY concerned about it when you see their peers heavily involved in social media!
delete it all
he needs to be sued for his dem ways