New York City sues several social networks for “fueling the youth mental health crisis”

The tremendous efforts of New York City to stop the epidemic of events carried out by people with mental disorders - on the subway, on the streets, in homes;

an unstoppable wave after the pandemic - have found a new way to demonstrate.

This Wednesday, the Big Apple filed a complaint against Google's TikTok, Meta, Snap and YouTube, “for fueling the national youth mental health crisis,” announced the mayor, Eric Adams.

The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court by the City of New York, the Department of Education and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, on which strained mental health services depend, alleges that these companies They intentionally manipulate and create addiction to younger users, keeping them attentive to their platforms and causing undesirable effects in their behavior that are ultimately harmful to the development of personality and coexistence with their environment.

The accusation is based on three counts, according to the laws of the State of New York: negligence, gross negligence and disorderly conduct.

The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial, changes in the companies' policy and financial relief.

According to the lawsuit, the behavioral disorders allegedly caused by addiction to the aforementioned platforms have generated an additional financial burden and crisis for the city, with repercussions on schools, hospitals and other communities.

In a press conference, Democrat Adams described New York teenagers as constantly desperate and anxious creatures;

glued to their phones and performing poorly in school, in addition to losing social skills and guidelines for coexistence as a result of addiction to screens.

Tackling the mental ailments that, in a very high proportion, afflict homeless people in New York has been a headache for Mayor Adams from the beginning of his mandate.

It has tried in every possible way, with a reinforcement of police patrols in the subway - an epicenter of the phenomenon, serving as protection for many homeless people - or even with the forced confinement in institutions of people with clear symptoms of imbalance, a measure highly criticized by NGOs, specialists and groups of relatives of those affected.

But targeting technology companies is a novelty, especially in a city built “on innovation and technology,” Adams said in a statement.

However, the councilor points out, “many social media platforms end up endangering the mental health of our children, promoting addiction and encouraging unsafe behaviors.”

“We are taking bold action on behalf of millions of New Yorkers to hold these companies accountable for their role in this crisis, and working to address this public health danger,” a reality especially battered by the ravages of the pandemic.

“This lawsuit and action plan are part of a broader adjustment that will shape the lives of our young people, our city and our society for years to come.”

New York is not, however, the vanguard of technological concern.

In the absence of new federal laws that protect children on the Internet, or at least regulations that adapt to the rapid pace of innovation, lawsuits to hold companies accountable, filed by districts, are becoming more frequent across the country. schoolchildren (the Seattle public school network and a couple of California counties, among others, did it months ago), groups of parents who claim that their children have been harmed by social networks and even some prosecutors, such as those of 41 States that jointly denounced Meta in October.

One of the arguments on which these demands are based is the express intention of the technology companies, to create addiction on purpose, as the tobacco industry once did with the incorporation of additives.

“We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences on the Internet, and we have more than 30 tools and features to help them and their parents.

“We have been working on these issues for a decade and hiring people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and protected on the Internet,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in response to the lawsuit, the terms of which he considers unfounded.

“In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we have created services and policies to provide youth with age-appropriate experiences and parents with robust controls.”

“TikTok has industry-leading safeguards to support the well-being of teens, including age-restricted features, parental controls, an automatic 60-minute time limit for users under 18, and other protections,” a spokesperson for the company stated. company, cited by the Axios portal.

The recent appearance at the Capitol of the heads of the technology companies Meta, TikTok, X, Snap and Discord, the last in a long list, is the most immediate precedent for the New York lawsuit, but not the only one.

At the hearing, members of Congress grilled executives for four hours about children's online safety, but new bills continue to languish while lawsuits pose a growing and tangible threat to companies' business models. companies.

The social outcry generated by an investigation that once found Instagram, Meta's social network, responsible for harming the mental health of adolescents with impossible beauty models seems to be far away.

Since then, the commitment to artificial intelligence - a topic that was curiously not addressed in the Congressional hearing on January 31, as a specific session had already been dedicated to it - has reached such speed that its own dynamics can overwhelm any attempt at regulate or protect the offer of platforms for minors and adolescents.

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