Four of Ontario's largest school boards have filed separate lawsuits totalling $4.5 billion against Big Tech companies Meta, Snapchat and TikTok for social media’s harmful impact on kids. The Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board filed lawsuits against the social media platforms Wednesday at Ontario's Superior Court of Justice. The lawsuits allege technology such as Facebook and Instagram are "designed for compulsive use (and) have rewired the way children think, behave and learn."Social media has impacted children’s capacity to pay attention and has caused a mental health crisis, as well as disrupted the education system as a whole, the school boards argue, according to a news release issued Thursday. The boards further cite the fact it is educators' job to “manage the fallout” while Big Tech increases its revenue. Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, said school boards have had to bring in extra staff and resources to deal with the "significant impacts that these addictive platforms are having on our students,” per the Toronto Star."We're managing mental health challenges, loneliness and discrimination — the slurs that we're seeing students use, some of that emanates from what's on social media.”"The fallout of compulsive use of social media amongst students is causing massive strains on the four school boards' finite resources, including additional needs for in-school mental health programming and personnel, increased IT costs and additional administrative resources," the news release states. "The goal of the litigation is to provide school boards with the resources needed to support student programming and services and to respond to the school-based problems social media giants have caused."A spokeswoman for Snap Inc. (SnapChat), Tonya Johnson, argued in defence of the platform, per Bloomberg. "Snapchat opens directly to a camera, rather than a feed of content and has no traditional public likes or comments," said Johnson, adding SnapChat was designed to stay in-touch with friends rather than feed into a child’s compulsion to scroll social media. "While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence."Brendan Browne, director of education for the Toronto Catholic District School Board said the purpose of filing the lawsuits is to “raise awareness and ultimately get these companies to acknowledge and to make these things safer,” according to the Star.
Four of Ontario's largest school boards have filed separate lawsuits totalling $4.5 billion against Big Tech companies Meta, Snapchat and TikTok for social media’s harmful impact on kids. The Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board filed lawsuits against the social media platforms Wednesday at Ontario's Superior Court of Justice. The lawsuits allege technology such as Facebook and Instagram are "designed for compulsive use (and) have rewired the way children think, behave and learn."Social media has impacted children’s capacity to pay attention and has caused a mental health crisis, as well as disrupted the education system as a whole, the school boards argue, according to a news release issued Thursday. The boards further cite the fact it is educators' job to “manage the fallout” while Big Tech increases its revenue. Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, said school boards have had to bring in extra staff and resources to deal with the "significant impacts that these addictive platforms are having on our students,” per the Toronto Star."We're managing mental health challenges, loneliness and discrimination — the slurs that we're seeing students use, some of that emanates from what's on social media.”"The fallout of compulsive use of social media amongst students is causing massive strains on the four school boards' finite resources, including additional needs for in-school mental health programming and personnel, increased IT costs and additional administrative resources," the news release states. "The goal of the litigation is to provide school boards with the resources needed to support student programming and services and to respond to the school-based problems social media giants have caused."A spokeswoman for Snap Inc. (SnapChat), Tonya Johnson, argued in defence of the platform, per Bloomberg. "Snapchat opens directly to a camera, rather than a feed of content and has no traditional public likes or comments," said Johnson, adding SnapChat was designed to stay in-touch with friends rather than feed into a child’s compulsion to scroll social media. "While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence."Brendan Browne, director of education for the Toronto Catholic District School Board said the purpose of filing the lawsuits is to “raise awareness and ultimately get these companies to acknowledge and to make these things safer,” according to the Star.
