Ontario schools are suing firms behind TikTok, Meta, Snapchat. Here’s why
Global News
Four of Ontario's biggest school boards have said social media platforms are disrupting education and causing social withdrawal and anxiety among students.
Four Ontario school boards are taking some of the world’s biggest and most popular social media giants to court, seeking damages worth $4.5 billion.
The Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and the Ottawa Carleton District School Board on Wednesday filed a claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
They sought damages from the companies behind Snapchat and TikTok as well as Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram. The schools have alleged that these social media platforms impact the mental health and learning capacities of students and create “widespread disruption to the education system.”
Toronto District School Board trustee Rachel Chernos Lin said schools have noted social withdrawal, anxiety, mental health concerns and rise in aggressive behaviors in students linked to social media use.
“Over 45 per cent of young people are spending over five hours on social media a day,” she said. “That’s having a tremendous impact on their mental health, their well-being, their behaviors, their attention span.”
Here’s what to know.
Duncan Embury, head of litigation at the Toronto law firm Neinstein LLP, said, “We’ve issued claim on behalf of four of the biggest school boards in Ontario against the social media giants Meta, Snap and TikTok for the disruption of the education system and the effect on adolescents and students of these products and what that means for their education and what it means for the resources at the schools.”
The lawsuit claims that social media giants owe a responsibility because they “knowingly and/or negligently engineered products and design features to manipulate brain neurochemistry and to induce excessive and/or compulsive and/or addictive and/or problematic use amongst students.”
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