As reported in Yahoo! Life, on September 12, 2024, the Lansing School District in Michigan took a declarative step by filing a lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap, Inc., joining a growing number of schools across the country that are pushing back against the influence of social media on students.
As with other earlier-filed suits against the social media giants, the Michigan lawsuit alleges that these companies have failed to provide adequate warnings about or in any way mitigate the harm their platforms can cause to children. The district’s complaint highlights that local students’ mental health has been severely impacted by social media, which has contributed to anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems that schools are left to manage.
Lieff Cabraser partner Lexi Hazam, who represents plaintiffs in a consolidated lawsuit against the same companies, has been vocal about the responsibility social media companies have to protect young users. She recently told Education Week, “Teachers and school administrators have been on the front lines of this crisis, and their resources are being drained by having to address the mental health impacts that these platforms are causing.”
The Lansing lawsuit is not an isolated case. According to Education Week, over 200 school districts have filed similar lawsuits, seeking to hold social media companies responsible for the negative effects their platforms have on children. These districts argue that companies like Meta and TikTok have designed their platforms to keep kids hooked, leading to addictive behavior that is difficult for students to break.
“This is about holding social media companies accountable for putting profit over the well-being of children,” Hazam said. “They’ve created platforms that are not just addictive but actively harmful, and schools are suffering the consequences.”
Hazam emphasized that “Funds meant for educational purposes have been reallocated to address the misconduct of the corporations behind Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook. Social media companies should be held to account and provide support to schools for the harms their products cause.”
The outcome of the Lansing lawsuit — along with the hundreds of other cases filed by school districts — could significantly reshape how social media companies operate, ensuring that children’s mental health and well-being take priority over profits.
Learn more about Lieff Cabraser’s Teen Social Media Addiction Lawsuit.
About Lexi J. Hazam
A leader within the plaintiffs’ bar, Lexi J. Hazam chairs the firm’s Personal Injury and Mass Tort practice group and represents clients in mass torts cases and qui tam actions, as well as complex class actions. In addition to her leadership roles in the Teen/Youth Social Media Injuries litigation and the Abilify Gambling Injuries MDL litigation, she also served on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee and as Co-Chair of the Plaintiffs’ Science and Experts Committee in the nationwide Benicar side effect injuries litigation. Lexi has spoken at numerous conferences on these and other drug injury cases, as well as on multiple recent California wildfire injury cases.
In 2016, Lexi was elected as Chair Elect of the American Association for Justice’s Section on Toxic, Environmental, and Pharmaceutical Torts (STEP) after previously serving as vice-chair. In 2018, Lexi was elected as Vice-Chair of the American Association for Justice’s Section on Qui Tam Litigation after previously serving as Co-Secretary.
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