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“School Boards vs The Big 3 Social Media Giants: What’s It All About?”
Presented by Debbie Firestone

Following on the heels of over five hundred school boards in the U.S., four of Ontario’s largest school boards filed lawsuits against the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok this past March. The Boards allege that, by being intentionally designed for compulsive use, these social media platforms have “rewired” the way children think, behave, and learn, and that schools have been left to manage the fallout. In May, five additional Ontario school boards and two private schools joined the lawsuit. Together, the Boards are seeking $4 billion in damages.

Speaking together under a newly formed coalition called Schools for Social Media Change, the boards make a slew of allegations about how the addictive properties of negligently designed social media platforms have upturned education systems, compromising students' ability to learn, disrupting classrooms, and creating a student population that is experiencing an attention, learning, and mental health crisis. They claim that students’ addictive use of social media hinders their ability to absorb lessons, think critically, and spot misinformation. The platforms facilitate and promote cyberbullying, harassment, hate speech, and misinformation, and play a part in escalating physical violence and conflicts in schools.

As a result, social media companies have interfered with the school boards’ ability to educate children, as is required by law, and caused “substantial damages”, including a significant drain on board resources and personnel in having to address compulsive student social media use, mental health issues, behavioural dysregulation, learning and attention impairments, as well as the heightened need for digital literacy and harm prevention programming and resources.

The coalition further points out that the mix of public and Catholic school boards and private schools in both urban and rural regions of Ontario demonstrate this is a universal issue that affects those from diverse cultural, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Both Health Canada and the U.S. Surgeon General have expressed similar, concerns. A recent statement from Health Canada says, “online service providers must be held accountable for the harmful content of their platforms“, while just this week, the U.S. Surgeon General called for a warning label on social media platforms to protect adolescents’ mental health.

The lawsuit calls on social media giants to redesign their products to keep students safe and reduce mental health harms to youth and disruptions to the education system. The lawsuit also seeks compensation on behalf of school boards for the losses related to tackling the crisis social media has created in our schools. 

Doug Ford has publicly stated that he disagrees with the lawsuits: “We banned cellphones in the classroom, so I don’t know what the kids are using. What are they spending on lawyers’ fees to go after these massive companies that have endless cash to fight this? Let’s focus on the kids, not this other nonsense that they’re looking to fight in court.”

As the litigation firm representing the boards, Neinstein LLP, is working on a contingency basis, however, the boards will not be paying lawyer’s fees unless the suit is successful.  

Responding to the lawsuit, a spokesperson from TikTok said the app has “industry-leading safeguards”, including parental controls and an automatic 60 minute screen time limit for users under the age of 18. “Our team of safety professionals continually evaluate emerging practices and insights to support teens’ well-being and continue working to keep our community safe.”

A spokesperson for SnapChat said the platform was “intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media. It opens directly to a camera – rather than a feed of content – and has no traditional likes or comments. While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role SnapChat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy, and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”

Although Instagram has not responded, Mark Zuckerberg recently told a U.S. congressional committee that scientific evidence has yet to show a causal link between poor mental health and social media use among young people.

*FYI: I’m attaching some additional info courtesy of ChatGPT for anyone interested:

1.    What Are The Effects of Social Media Platforms on Children’s Brains?
2.    What are social media platforms doing to mitigate the negative effects of their products on children's brains and development?”

The Big Question: Does The Lawsuit Stand a Chance?

According to a Toronto injury malpractice lawyer, although he does believe social media companies need to be held accountable, there are several areas where he believes the school boards’ case could face challenges. These include:

The legal concept of ‘duty of care’ (the avoidance of acts that could cause harm): The question in this case is whether the social media companies owe a duty of care to the school boards, rather than to the students who specifically used their products and may have suffered harm.

Defining Damages: There is no doubt that students are suffering, and no doubt that there are strains on school boards, their resources, and teachers.

But the question is how to quantify the harm caused? And how will the school boards establish that the damages/harm they allege were caused by social media were not caused by other factors, such as the impact of COVID-19 on student’s mental health, the impact of remote learning or just strained academic resources in general.    

Burden of Proof:

The boards will also have the burden of proving how the social media companies intentionally get adolescents hooked on social media. One of the biggest challenged facing the Boards may be who they are challenging and the financial resources at their disposal. Also, the case will doubtless stretch on for years . . .

Other Questions to Consider (with the partial assistance of ChatGPT):

·       Do you agree with the Boards that social media platforms are “rewiring” children’s brains? Consider watching “What Social Media Scrolling is Doing to Kids’ Brains” at https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.7027505  

·       What do you think of the responses from TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook? Do they address the claims and concerns expressed by the lawsuit?

·       What ethical responsibilities do social media companies have in ensuring the mental well-being of their younger users?

·       What responsibility should/do schools and parents bear in monitoring and managing children's social media use? Are they also partly responsible for mitigating these impacts?

·       What additional measures could schools take independently of legal action?

·       How might/do these lawsuits impact the broader issue of children's mental health and well-being, which may be influenced by a range of factors beyond social media?

·       How do these lawsuits balance the protection of children with issues of freedom of expression and access to information?

·       Could the outcomes of these lawsuits lead to increased regulation and potential censorship of content on social media platforms?

·       How might social media companies need to change their platform designs and algorithms to mitigate negative impacts on children’s learning and well-being?

·       What specific features or practices of social media companies are being targeted in these lawsuits?

·       If the lawsuits are successful, what practical steps will social media companies need to take to comply with any court rulings or settlements?

·       How feasible are these changes, and what impact might they have on the broader user base and business models of these companies?

·       What impact might successful lawsuits have on the broader tech industry, particularly regarding innovation and the development of new platforms? 

·       Could these lawsuits stifle technological advancement or lead to more responsible innovation?

·       What are the potential long-term educational outcomes if social media companies are held accountable and make changes to their platforms?

Join us for a very topical discussion.