Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Montgomery County<\/a> on Tuesday sued some of the nation\u2019s largest social media companies in a Northern California federal court, joining nearly 3,000<\/a> actions from parents, school districts, cities, counties, and states that say the platforms are harming the mental health of children and teens.<\/p>\n The social media giants have faced a flood of litigation in state and federal courts, part of a public reckoning over the negative impacts their products are accused of having on young people. The lawsuits allege that the companies have developed platforms that are addictive, especially to young people, and contribute to negative self-image and social isolation. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: A Philly girl was \u2018sextorted\u2019 by a man she met on Roblox. The gaming platform is facing other lawsuits.<\/a><\/p>\n Montgomery County is suing Meta, ByteDance, Snap, and Google on behalf of the county\u2019s 148 schools and more than 180,000 minor students, the filing said. It accused the companies and their popular products \u2014 including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok \u2014 of negligence and creating a public nuisance. <\/p>\n \u201cToo many young people are struggling with anxiety, depression, self-harm, and other serious mental health challenges,\u201d Jamila Winder, chair of the Montgomery County commissioners, said in a news release Wednesday. \u201cWe believe social media companies must be held accountable for the role their products play in harming young people.\u201d <\/p>\n Montgomery County\u2019s lawsuit is one of nearly 3,000 cases before a Northern District of California judge through a mechanism called multidistrict litigation. The process allows the federal court system to handle a large volume of similar complaints in one court, usually leading to a number of bellwether trials that help assess the value of a potential global settlement. <\/p>\n The county\u2019s suit is part of a larger partnership between its board of commissioners and its district attorney\u2019s office \u201cto proactively identify, investigate, and pursue cases against companies whose actions harm consumers or create illegal costs for taxpayers,\u201d the news release said. <\/p>\n The 2025 Pennsylvania Youth Survey<\/a> found that 97% of youth respondents have a phone that can access the internet, 81% have a social media account, and 24% spend four or more hours on a school day on social media. <\/p>\n Those habits are reflected nationwide. As many as 95% of American teens are on social media platforms, and a third report using them \u201calmost constantly,\u201d according to research cited in a 2023 advisory by the U.S. Surgeon General\u2019s Office<\/a> and highlighted by Montgomery County in its news release Wednesday. <\/p>\n Teens who spend more than three hours a day on social media platforms have double the risk of depression and anxiety, and half of teens report that social media makes them feel worse about the way they look, according to the advisory.<\/p>\n Spokespeople for TikTok and Snap did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Casta\u00f1eda, a spokesperson for Google, said in a statement Wednesday that \u201cthe allegations in these complaints are simply not true.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cProviding young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,\u201d Casta\u00f1eda said. \u201cIn collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls.\u201d<\/p>\n A Meta spokesperson also objected to the allegations, saying the company is \u201cconfident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most. We\u2019re proud of the progress we\u2019ve made, and we\u2019re always working to do better,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Jury selection began Wednesday in the first of the Northern California trials<\/a> against the social media giants, part of a case against Meta brought in 2023 by 29 states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The trial itself focuses on New Jersey and three other states.<\/p>\n Meta said that damages in the case could reach $1.4 trillion, according to Reuters,<\/a> which is not far from the $1.5 trillion market cap of the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. <\/p>\n (In May, Meta settled for an undisclosed amount<\/a> in a case brought by a rural Kentucky school district before jury selection took place. The case was slated to be the first bellwether trial in the centralized litigation.)<\/p>\n In 2023, Bucks County<\/a> also filed a lawsuit in the litigation<\/a> concentrated in California federal court. <\/p>\n The social media giants face legal challenges elsewhere, too.<\/p>\n Also on Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday sued ByteDance<\/a>, the company behind TikTok, in a Pittsburgh state court. That lawsuit accuses the company of creating an intentionally addictive platform and serving inappropriate content to teens as young as 13. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Pennsylvania sues TikTok, alleging addictive algorithms and age-inappropriate content<\/a><\/p>\n The companies have argued in courts across the country<\/a> that they are protected by federal laws that govern the internet, which were enacted before the advent of social media, complex algorithms, and personalized feeds.<\/p>\n The social media platforms themselves cannot be held liable for the content other people post, the companies have argued in court. And, they said, social media addiction is not an established diagnosis<\/a> and mental health harm cannot be directly linked to use of a platform, app, or website. <\/p>\n But jurors in the first trials over social media\u2019s harmful effects rejected most of the companies\u2019 arguments. A New Mexico judge this month ordered Meta to pay nearly a billion dollars, combing a $567 million verdict and a $375 million civil penalty, after a jury found the company had committed 75,000 violations of the state\u2019s Unfair Practices Act<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Montgomery County on Tuesday sued some of the nation\u2019s largest social media companies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260,344578],"class_list":["post-811995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-montgomery-county-lawsuit-social-media-mental-health-teens-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}