New York City Sues Social Media Companies Over 'Youth Mental Health Crisis' (gizmodo.com)
- Reference: 0179733114
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/10/09/2059232/new-york-city-sues-social-media-companies-over-youth-mental-health-crisis
- Source link: https://gizmodo.com/new-york-city-sues-social-media-companies-over-youth-mental-health-crisis-2000670413
> The City of New York is reaching across the country to sue tech giants headquartered in California over allegations that their platforms have [1]created a youth mental health crisis . The city, along with its school districts and health department, alleges that "gross negligence" on the part of Meta, Alphabet, Snap, and ByteDance has gotten kids hooked on social media, which has created a "public nuisance" that is placing a strain on the city's resources.
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> In a [2]327-page complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the city alleges that tech companies have designed their platforms in a way that seeks to "maximize the number of children" using them, and have built "algorithms that wield user data as a weapon against children and fuel the addiction machine." The city also alleges that these companies "know children and adolescents are in a developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these features," but "target them anyway, in pursuit of additional profit."
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> [...] It cites data from the New York City Police Department, for instance, that show at least 16 teens have died while "subway surfing" -- riding outside of a moving train -- a dangerous behavior which the lawsuit claims has been encouraged by social media trends. Two girls, ages 12 and 13, [3]died earlier this month while subway surfing. It also cited survey data collected from New York high school students, which shows that 77.3% of the city's teens spend three or more hours per day on screens, which it claims has contributed to lost sleep and, in turn, absences from school -- corroborated by the city's school districts, which provided data to show that 36.2% of all public school students are considered chronically absent, missing at least 10% of the school year.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/new-york-city-sues-social-media-companies-over-youth-mental-health-crisis-2000670413
[2] https://www.scribd.com/document/930691711/The-City-of-New-York-v-Meta-Platforms-Inc
[3] https://nypost.com/2025/10/06/us-news/young-girls-12-and-13-killed-in-horrific-nyc-subway-surfing-tragedy-idd-full-of-life-and-taken-from-us-far-too-soon/
Following the Tobacco Settlement for more revenue (Score:2)
The internet and social media are different than addicting tobacco.
The same playbook is here though.
- Lots of government jurisdictions and agencies collectively sue an industry
- The industry eventually settles out of court with a pay X% per year to a fund split by the government entities
- The government entities sell municipal bonds backed by future revenues from that settlement fund
- Government entities today can massively spend more money from the money raised by the bond sales
- Politicians of all strips
Sorting algorothms (Score:2)
We can use the same computer algorithm to sort tires, apples and trees and discuss the algorithm by itself in the abstract.
We can do this without hyper-fixating on tires and all their aspects.
We can do this with looking at how governments can gang up and extract a multi-generational revenue stream from an industry without hyper-fixating on the aspects of that industry.
Just rejected (Score:2)
Didn't the Supreme Court JUST REJECT a similar case about the Dylann Roof church shooting?
Does the city even have standing? (Score:2)
So if police have no duty to protect the citizenry (Castle Rock v. Gonzales, Warren v. DC), then how exactly does a City claim to have standing when in their claim to enforce "safety" for a citizenry, of which the vast majority who would be impacted by their claim exist outside of their jurisdiction?
Could SM have been better ? (Score:2)
Could social media have been ok if it stuck to a chronological feed and real people voting?
Like Instagram before Facebook drowned it in a bathtub?
"gross negligence" (Score:2)
> The city, along with its school districts and health department, alleges that "gross negligence" on the part of Meta, Alphabet, Snap, and ByteDance has gotten kids hooked on social media , which has created a "public nuisance" that is placing a strain on the city's resources.
So insulting to call it "gross negligence". This took years of deliberate effort.
Seriously, it did. Teams doing A/B tests and analyzing interactions to optimize for maximum sustainable engagement. Tweaks to algorithms to promote conflict -but just enough to keep people posting without actually driving them away. "Like" counts to encourage gamification. It is all about encouraging addiction.
Where'd they get the smartphones? (Score:2)
Aren't the smartphones the conduit to these addictive, mind-altering services? You could easily sue Apple and Google for developing the operating systems and UIs/app stores that enable predatory applications and ecosystems to thrive.
However, to my knowledge, with the exception of people on public assistance... you don't just get given a smartphone. Someone with disposable income has to buy it... then give it to the vulnerable youth in question.
This sounds very much like more posturing by politicians and la
If this sets a precedent... (Score:2)
New York wins this case, could I have a chance of winning a suit, and/or could a class of adults have a chance, for the negative mental health affects of social media on all of us? And lost productivity? Though in asking the question, I come to the conclusion that adults should be responsible for the actions of themselves and their children.
Parents (Score:2)
> "allegations that their platforms have created a youth mental health crisis."
100% the fault of parents giving their children unrestricted, unsupervised internet-connected devices. Would you give your children full, unsupervised access to your car? Gun? Alcohol? Chainsaw? Medications? Or allow them to go out and visit anywhere they want or hang out with anyone they want, and at any time? Or to talk to adult strangers, alone? Or go to a casino? Of course not. But that is analogous to handing them an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"But these problems are 100% the fault of parents."
No, parents have the responsibility but they are not to blame for social media. We are all to blame for this because we accept ineffective government and ridiculous identity politics.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, you're not allowed to kill members of the govt, so effective options are rather limited.
Mass Addiction. (Score:1)
> "But these problems are 100% the fault of parents."
> No, parents have the responsibility but they are not to blame for social media. We are all to blame for this because we accept ineffective government and ridiculous identity politics.
Social media is a fairly new abuse tool in Government, but it merely enhanced that Us vs. Them two-party stupidity. Political pressure isn’t shit compared to peer pressure. We know how kids got addicted. It wasn’t politics. And you’re right. We are ALL collectively at fault. Don’t dismiss personal responsibility in favor of fingering Daddy Gov. Accept the fact that when everyone is an addict, no one is.
Pretend social media is like the kids doing drugs. How many minutes after
Re: Mass Addiction. (Score:2)
I'm in Laos, which apparently never had significant autism historically, and where I've never seen an autistic adult (I've seen many in the USA). Parents here often give phones to very young children, maybe partly because they need to work and can't care for the child, but also often because they want to drink and party with adults. These children rarely have daycare and some don't have school. Many don't have present fathers at all. Many don't have siblings. A Lao person told me yesterday that many of thes
Re: (Score:2)
> ineffective government and ridiculous identity politics.
So, mommy government.