New York City sues Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube over ‘youth mental health crisis’

New York City, the school district and the health care system have sued Meta, Snap TikTok, and YouTube for allegedly contributing to the “youth mental health crisis” through intentionally addictive platforms. The lawsuit is the latest in a long line of legal actions against social media platforms over their handling of safety and other issues facing teens.

New York City was joined in the lawsuit by the city’s school district and NYC Health+ Hospitals, the city’s largest public hospital system. The lawsuit alleges that the social media companies intentionally designed their platforms to be addictive to children, and that they failed to implement effective safeguards.

The lawsuit alleges that the companies “caused, caused, and contributed to a youth mental health crisis in New York City, causing harm to the health and safety of the public, interfering with the use of public accommodations, including schools, and endangering or harming the health, safety, comfort, or well-being of a significant number of persons, including youth.” She says the city, school district and hospitals have had to “dedicate significant resources — in terms of funding, staffing and time” to address the “youth mental health crisis” caused by corporations.

The lawsuit also specifically calls out the appearance of viral posts about “subway surfing” in New York, noting that several teens have died attempting the stunt and more than 100 people have been arrested. “In large part, the NYPD’s investigation found that subway surfers’ primary motivation was to imitate videos they viewed on social media and collect likes on social media,” the lawsuit said. It also claims that teachers and other school staff are “experiencing secondary trauma and burnout associated with responding to students in crisis” due to social media.

Meta, Snap, and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. In a statement, Google spokesman Jose Castañeda said the “allegations are simply not true” and “fundamentally misunderstand YouTube.” “YouTube is a streaming service where people come to watch everything from live sporting events to podcasts from their favorite creators, primarily on television, not a social network where people go to connect with friends,” he said. “We’ve also developed personalized tools like supervised experiences for youth, with guidance from child safety experts, that put families in control.”