Wake schools to consider suing social media companies over student mental health
By Emily Walkenhorst, WRAL education reporter
Wake would likely join a national lawsuit against Meta, Google, ByteDance and Snap, arguing schools have had to handle the fallout of the psychological damage caused by the apps.
Wake County’s school board is weighing whether to sue social media companies, arguing that schools have had to handle the fallout of psychological damage caused by their apps.
Wake would join a long list of school boards already suing companies such as Meta, Google, ByteDance and Snap. Eleven other North Carolina school systems — Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Clinton City, and those in Cumberland, Johnston, Wilson, Union, Robeson, Moore, Wayne, Pitt and Rockingham counties — are already suing the companies, joining hundreds more around the country.
And as of December, at least 42 attorneys general, including North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, had also sued.
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Lawsuits against the social media companies have alleged the companies have failed to warn teenage users of their potential harm and have caused psychological damage to users in the form of increased eating disorders, depression and anxiety. School boards have argued they have been forced to divert educational spending toward efforts to improve children’s mental health.
The other lawsuits have been combined into one national case before a federal court in Northern California. The Wake County school board would be joining those cases.
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The companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The companies have previously said in statements to news media that they have worked toward improving safety for teens.
Wake’s process in the social media case would be similar to what the school board did when it sued JUUL Labs and other electronic cigarette companies, alleging the companies were marketing to teenagers. Those lawsuits were also combined with other similar lawsuits nationally and have been settled, with Wake schools receiving several million dollars to go toward curbing teen vaping.
On Tuesday, the school board will hear from Janet Ward Black, of Ward Black Law, and Matthew Legg, or Baird Mandalas Brockstedt and Federico. Those are two of the law firms representing other schools districts in North Carolina and beyond.
In a slideshow of the presentation they’re scheduled to give, the attorneys argue the social media companies have designed their products to be addicting and that they’ve caused users distress. That distress trickles down into school, where students struggle and educators try to help them with additional resources.
