Another Lawsuit Against Social Networks: Youth Gets Addicted

“They have deliberately organized platforms to attract, capture, and create addiction in young people.” For these reasons, the City of New York has decided to sue some of the most prominent social media networks in the California Supreme Court: TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. The school district and health agencies are also involved in a lawsuit against Meta, Snap, ByteDance, and Google for “harming the mental health of children and youth.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was talking about this lawsuit back in January 2024: “Over the past ten years, we have seen how the online world can expose our children to a steady stream of harmful content and undermine young people’s mental health.”

The companies that created the most popular social networks have long faced several lawsuits related to the negative effects and addiction they cause in young people. They began to be closely monitored by regulators who demanded that children be protected from harmful content. But in this case, the focus is probably on the nature of social media itself. Google spokesman Jose Castaneda explained in a statement quoted by Reuters that “the allegations contained in this lawsuit are simply false.” At the same time, Meta and TikTok executives proved to be more cooperative.

At a U.S. Senate hearing on January 31, 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the families of children affected by his social media. The Facebook creator clarified that the company wants teens to have a “safe and age-appropriate online experience.” ByteDance CEO (who runs TikTok) Shou Zi Chew was also present at those hearings. He said the company will continue to work to keep the community safe: “We have developed services and policies to offer young people age-appropriate experiences and effective parental supervision.”