Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Defendants cited in the case are Meta Platforms Inc.; Facebook Holdings LLC; Facebook Operations LLC; Meta Payments Inc.; Facebook Technologies LLC; Instagram LLC, Siculus Inc.; Snap Inc.; TikTok Inc.; ByteDance Inc.; Alphabet Inc.; Google LLC; XXVI Holdings Inc. and YouTube LLC.
In an unprecedented 91-page complaint, the plaintiff requested a jury trial, stating defendants have scaled their platforms in highly manipulative ways, claiming these techniques leverage psychology and neurophysiology to create a "mental health crisis among America's youth."
Reporting on the action in a Jan. 10, 2023, blog post, Shelley Palmer, a technology advisor and business consultant, observed the school district is particularly concerned about the addictive nature of social media in general.
"At its best, social media connects us to old friends; keeps us up to date on our communities of interest, practice, and passion; and helps amplify our voices," he wrote. "At its worst, social media divides us and creates an environment where pain and suffering are measurable. That's what this lawsuit is about."
The school district also alleged media platforms have profited by exploiting young minds, stating young people, whose brains are not fully developed, are highly susceptible to defendant's manipulative conduct.
"Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants' social media platforms," the complaint reads. "Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive (e.g., promoting a "corpse bride" diet, eating 300 calories a day, or encouraging self-harm)."
These practices have resulted in escalating mental health issues, which the school district noted, have steadily climbed over the past decade and made suicide the second leading cause of death for children.
The school district is additionally calling for government agencies to join their fight against what they claim are tactics that undermine children's confidence and character and place them in harm's way. The pandemic only worsened these issues as children were forced to spend more time indoors, the plaintiff claimed.
"The state of children's mental health led the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital Association to declare a national emergency, and the U.S. Surgeon General to issue an advisory 'to highlight the urgent need to address the nation's youth mental health crisis.'"
Efforts to train teachers and staff to screen students for mental health symptoms and refer them to mental health services have fallen short of stemming a growing number of suicides in King County, Washington, the plaintiffs stated, while calling for "a comprehensive, long-term plan and funding to drive a sustained reduction in the record rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other tragic indices of the mental health crisis its youth are experiencing at Defendants' hands."
Specific complaints against each of the social media giants named in the lawsuit can be found at storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.317950/gov.uscourts.wawd.317950.1.0.pdf?mc_cid=70e7ced90b&mc_eid=c6b1b1ae5d 
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