The Examiner U-46 News FeedSocial media lawsuit likely to be joined by Dist. U-46 By Seth Hancock
School District U-46 plans to join over 300 school districts from 11 different states in a lawsuit against social media companies over harm the platforms allegedly do to children.
The Board of Education will vote on a resolution to join the lawsuit at its upcoming meeting on Monday, Sept. 11. It was presented at the Aug. 21 meeting.
The attorney-client fee contract states that 25 percent “of any monetary settlement or recovery” would go to Frantz Law Group, a California-based firm that is leading the lawsuit.
The resolution states that “in recent years the proliferation of and widespread access to and use of social media among public school students has expanded dramatically, leading to significant risks of anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, and suicidal ideation among students,” and U-46 students “have been part of this phenomenon by engaging with social media in school and on school grounds in addition to outside of school.”
The social media companies listed in the resolution are “Meta Platforms, Inc. Facebook Holdings LLC, Snap Inc, TikTok Inc., Alphabet Inc. and other parties responsible.”
Some legal experts have weighed in suggesting the lawsuit has little merit, according to the Associated Press.
“The underlying argument is that the tech industry is to blame for the emotional state of teenagers, because they made recommendations on content that has caused emotional harm,” Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, told the AP. “It would be absurd to sue Barnes & Noble because an employee recommended a book that caused emotional harm or made a teenager feel bad. But that’s exactly what this lawsuit is doing.”
Eric Goldman, law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said there’s evidence that social media has had both negative and positive effects.
“What we don’t know is what the distress rate would look like without social media,” Goldman said. “It’s possible the distress rate would be higher, not lower.”
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