Aspen suit: Social media hurting students, straining schools

The Aspen School District filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against an assortment of social media companies that it blamed for profiting at the expense of children and teenagers’ physical and mental health while placing them in potentially dangerous situations.

According to the 43-page complaint, the social media companies have knowingly put their users, many of them adolescents and teenagers, in social and emotional peril with their platforms.

Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta Holdings, are defendants, as well as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and their parent companies and affiliates. The companies “have caused an increase in mental health issues, disrupted the public peace, and negatively impacted the operation of schools, classrooms, and the overall learning environment,” the suit said.

The suit said the school district has suffered damages because the social media companies have used algorithms to drive compulsive and addictive usage of the social media sites and apps by children and teens, leading them into depression, sleep deprivation, anxiety and other difficulties. Bullying can result from social media use, said the suit, also noting the potential for sexual exploitation.

Social media companies have done nothing to help, leaving the school district to take on its negative fallout, the suit alleged. The suit is seeking at least $75,000 in compensation for damages due to the companies’ negligence and public nuisance.

“The impact Defendants’ platforms have had on adolescent and teenage users including Plaintiff’s students cannot be overstated. School districts across the country are left dealing with the fallout of Defendants actions. Increasingly schools are relied on to act as ‘first responders amid the rising rates of suicidal ideation, overdoses, and gun violence,’” the suit said.

The following are suit excerpts about the companies:

Facebook — “Millions of teen and child users, including the students of Plaintiff, use Meta’s inherently and intentionally dangerous social media platform every single day,” said the complaint about Facebook, which is owned by Meta Platforms Inc.

Instagram — “Meta chooses to promote content which it knows is harmful and or unhealthy for teens and young users but has time and again refused to implement changes known to mitigate potential harm. The decision to maintain the status quo is based on a desire to drive user engagement and reap increased profits.”

YouTube — “YouTube knows underage children are active on its platform and rather than take steps to ensure the safety of young users it has taken steps specifically designed to evade parental consent. Millions of teenage and adolescent users, including Plaintiff’s students, have become addicted to YouTube, using it every day. These children suffer significant mental harms resulting from the design, features, and operation decisions made by YouTube parent Alphabet.

Snapchat — “Far from taking steps to better protect teenage and adolescent users, Snapchat offers a feature known as ‘My Eyes Only.’ ‘My Eyes Only’ allows the user to store content in a folder which cannot be accessed by anyone, including Snapchat, without entry of a passcode set by the user. The only purpose of the ‘My Eyes Only’ feature is to allow users to hide content that is either sexually explicit or otherwise harmful from parents and/or legal guardians.”

TikTok — TikTok is a place where users can create and share pictures and videos. It became available to Amerians in August 2018 and its popularity swelled during the pandemic, according to the suit. The platform also is a place where students can receive messages requesting explicit photographs of them, the suit contended.

The suit said, “TikTok continues to put profits over the mental and physical wellbeing of its millions of underage users which it knows are harmed by its dangerous and defective platform. TikTok knows there are ways of better protecting vulnerable users but chooses not to implement those protections.”

The school board agreed at its April 26 meeting to retain Pennsylvania law firm Bern Cappelli LLC for the litigation. Dozens of school districts across the country have been suing the social media giants for their platforms’ impacts on school-aged children and teens.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado in Denver.

Rick Carroll, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer