New York City is suing TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms — claiming the apps willfully contributed to the ongoing "youth mental health crisis."
The lawsuit was announced Wednesday via a press release from the office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who blamed the platforms for pushing addictive and harmful material on children.
"Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis," said Adams.
The lawsuit press release names five targets for the lawsuit — ByteDance's TikTok, Meta's Facebook and Instagram, Snap's Snapchat. Google's YouTube,
Adams said, "Today, we're taking bold action on behalf of millions of New Yorkers to hold these companies accountable for their role in this crisis, and we're building on our work to address this public health hazard. This lawsuit and action plan are part of a larger reckoning that will shape the lives of our young people, our city, and our society for years to come."
Officials claim local youths "compulsively" use these social media services, including during school.
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The lawsuit asserts that social media companies "designed, developed, produced, operated, promoted, distributed, and marketed" their products to "attract, capture, and addict youth, with minimal parental oversight."
Companies named in the lawsuit responded to the claims with an explicit denial of the New York City government's accusations.
"TikTok has industry-leading safeguards to support teens’ well-being, including age-restricted features, parental controls, an automatic 60-minute time limit for users under 18, and more," a TikTok spokesperson said of the suit. "We regularly partner with experts to understand emerging best practices, and will continue to work to keep our community safe by tackling industry-wide challenges."
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"Snapchat was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media, with a focus on helping Snapchatters communicate with their close friends. Snapchat opens directly to a camera — rather than a feed of content that encourages passive scrolling — and has no traditional public likes or comments," a Snapchat representative said.
"We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools and features to support them and their parents," Meta said in a statement. "We’ve spent a decade working on these issues and hiring people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and supported online."
The New York City government claims to spend $100 million on programs for young people suffering from mental health issues.