OGDEN, Utah — While the state of Utah pursues litigation against social media platforms for alleged harms to youth, the Weber School District has signed on to similar litigation.
The Weber School District is among a number of plaintiffs in a case filed in California. The school district's lawsuit is similar to the state of Utah's litigation against some platforms, which alleges addictive algorithms that harm the mental health of youth.
In a related case, a federal judge in California is weighing whether to dismiss a lawsuit filed against social media platforms by dozens of individual plaintiffs. On Friday, a court heard arguments by social media companies pushing for the personal injury lawsuit to be thrown out. Attorneys connected to the case said the judge took the matter under advisement.
In a motion to dismiss the personal injury case, attorneys representing Meta (the owner of Facebook and Instagram) argued they cannot be held responsible "for many of the most severe alleged harms the generalized allegations show that independent acts by third parties, such as sexual predators, drug dealers, and cyberbullies, were the cause of any such harms, not Defendants’ services."
Snap, which owns Snapchat, argued in a separate filing that it is different from other platforms.
"Unlike these other platforms, Snapchat is primarily used for direct communication between people who already know each other in real life. As Plaintiffs’ allegations concede, Snapchat does not open to a feed of algorithmically amplified and unvetted content, but rather to the user’s own camera," attorneys for the company wrote.
The case involving school district plaintiffs has yet to be decided.
The Weber School District joined other school districts across the nation in a lawsuit against social media platforms. In a statement to FOX 13 News on Monday, the district explained its motivations, including seeing students with anxiety and depression that impacts their grades and participation in school activities. The district also said the amount of cyberbullying that administrators must respond to is "unprecedented."
"Weber School District has been thoroughly documenting mental health problems in our schools, and have seen an increase in mental health-related problems in kids over the last decade. In response to this, we've more than doubled our mental health staff in our district just in the past two years to try and help students. The need is still greater than what we can support," the district said, adding:
"Our Board of Education is very concerned with the issues we're seeing and have opted to join several districts across the nation to pursue civil action, in an effort to hold these companies accountable for their role in the mental health problems of students. Any money generated from this lawsuit will go directly to schools to help better serve students with mental health needs."
Utah political leaders have gotten increasingly aggressive against social platforms. The legislature has passed laws that seek to restrict youth from accessing the apps. The state has also launched a campaign to warn against "harms" that can happen as a result of too much exposure to social sites.
