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School sues Meta, TikTok, Google, others over ‘youth mental health crisis’

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With the rise of mental health cases amongst young children, Seattle’s public school district has filed a lawsuit against the major social media companies—TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snap.

The school argued that by “exploit[ing] the vulnerable brains of youth” for a profit, Big Tech has created a mental-health epidemic in teenagers across the country.

The new lawsuit is a new filing of similar others against most Social media giants.

Ripples Nigeria has repeatedly reported cases of legal actions against Big Tech on alleged breach of privacy, deceit and mental health abuse.

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Most of the legal actions have been from the US, Canada, France and China, a trend that leaves one to wonder if Africa had not suffered similarly to exercise a legal right.

The Seattle Public School, being the Washington state’s largest school district, alleged that these Big Tech companies use psychological tactics to boost younger users’ engagement, in particular, in order to sell more ads.

According to the school management, who filed the lawsuit on Friday in Seattle’s U.S. District Court, the school is seeking “the maximum statutory and civil penalties permitted by law,” and wields a novel legal argument on the bases that these platforms are “injurious to health.”

In the US and elsewhere, there is an increasing number of young people struggling with mental health issues emanating from exposure to and use of social media, leading to suicide or depression.

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