San Mateo County school board sues social media giants

The superintendent and school board in San Mateo County this week filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging “the current youth mental health crisis has been made worse by the social media industry’s deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning to manipulate a youth audience with the goal of keeping children and teens engaged with their products in harmful ways.”

The companies include YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok, along with the companies that own them. The Bay Area lawsuit is similar to one filed in Seattle this year.

Along with being deemed a public nuisance, which would enable the court to order an end to the behaviors the lawsuit is alleging, the suit also seeks for the defendants to pay into a public education fund.