Ont. school boards are trying to take down the social media giants. Do their causes create chance? – CBS.ca Achi-News

They were reckless and malicious, manipulating the neurochemistry of young students’ brains, intoxicating them on social media platforms, and, in doing so, causing widespread damage and disruption to the education system.

These are just some of the so far unproven claims made by four Ontario school boards in their recently filed statements of claim against social media giants Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd, which operates the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok respectively, seeking a total of $4.5 billion in damages.

The lawsuits, possibly the first of their kind in Canada, could take years to litigate, involve dozens of experts, thousands of documents and cost lots and lots of money.

And they may also face significant legal challenges.

“I think there are a number of hurdles they’re going to face,” said Josh Nisker, a Toronto-based personal injury lawyer.

Nisker, as a parent and lawyer, said he believes social media companies need to be held accountable for their behavior.

“But having said that, I have concerns about the viability of these claims, whether they will ultimately deliver the meaningful change we hope for.”

To whom is the ‘duty of care’ owed?

According to the statements of claim, school boards allege that these social media companies, through their “unsafe and/or addictive products” have caused the students to suffer from a range of mental health issues, including “behavioural dysregulation, learning impairments and comment. .”

This has impaired the school boards’ ability to educate children, which is required by law, and has caused “substantial damages,” the statements of claim say. Compensation includes, according to the lawsuit, a significant strain on school board resources and personnel when dealing with student mental health issues.

“The defendants have acted in a heavy-handed, reckless, malicious and outrageous manner without due regard for the welfare of the students and the education system,” the statements of claim state.

Duncan Embury, partner and head of litigation at Neinstein LLP, a Toronto-based firm representing the school board, told CBC News last week that the companies named are “primarily responsible” for the social media products that children use. uses them, and shares common designs or algorithms that lead to “problematic use.”

While Embury said he believes the lawsuit is the first of its kind in Canada, hundreds of school boards in the United States, along with some states, have launched similar lawsuits against social media companies .

But Nisker said there are some areas where he believes the school boards’ case could face challenges, including the legal concept known as the “duty of care”—to avoid actions that could cause harm.

There are many existing duties of care that have been recognized by Canadian courts. For example, a motorist has a duty of care towards other motorists, pedestrians and cyclists, which means that they must avoid, through their actions, causing harm.

But in the school boards’ lawsuit, the question is whether the social media companies owe a duty of care to the school boards, and not the students who specifically used their products and may have suffered harm.

“While I’m sure the school board lawyers will offer some interesting, thoughtful and creative legal arguments, personally, I’m having trouble seeing how the court is going to make that connection here,” Nisker said.

Define compensation

Another legal issue is damages — quantifiable harms that individuals suffer and are compensated for by law, Nisker said.

In many cases that can be simple: a person’s leg is broken after being hit by a car, and they suffer pain and suffering, lost wages and medical expenses, all related to being hit.

The suing party must prove that the damages they suffered were caused by the harm.

In the case against the social media companies, Nisker said he questions how the school boards will establish that the damages they claim were caused by social media were not caused by other factors, such as the impact of COVID-19 on students’ mental health, the impact of distance learning or academic resources under pressure in general.

“I have no doubt that students are suffering, and I have no doubt that there has been stress on school boards and resources and on teachers,” he said.

“But the question will be, how do you quantify that? And is it Facebook and TikTok and Snapchat causing it, or is it something else?”

Proving what effect social media has on children will be at the heart of the case. The issue of teenage mental illness and how social media causes or affects it has been resurfaced recently with the release of US social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Haidt, citing a number of studies, argues that the rise of “telephone childhood” beginning in the late 2000s and accelerating, when young people became addicted to their smartphones loaded with social media platforms, has led to an epidemic of mental health issues.

The book has sparked support and criticism, over exactly how much these mental health issues are attributed to social media.

Linda Charmaraman, founder and director of the Media and Youth Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, said research has found that social media can be harmful, but not necessarily.

“It depends on when, why, and how children and young people use it,” he wrote in an email to CBC News.

He said it is difficult to ascertain the effects of social media on children because researchers cannot conduct a randomized controlled trial on this issue.

“Children’s lives are complex and there are many, many factors involved that cannot be controlled.”

He also cited the American Psychological Association’s health advisory last year, to which he contributed, which found that social media use is “not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.”

“In most cases, the effects of social media depend on the adolescent’s personal and psychological characteristics and social circumstances,” said the adviser.

Also last year, the US Surgeon General sounded the alarm on social media and youth mental health, saying in a consultation that although it may offer some benefits, there are “plenty of indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to mental health. and the welfare of children and young people.”

“We don’t have enough evidence to say it’s safe, and in fact, there’s growing evidence that social media use is linked to harm to young people’s mental health,” said US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in a statement at the time of the consultant’s release.

Burden of proof

Brian Cameron, a personal injury lawyer at Oatley Vigmond, said both sides will certainly employ many experts including neurocognitive scientists, neuropsychologists and pediatric neurologists.

But plaintiffs will also have the burden of proving how social media companies intentionally get young people hooked on social media, he said.

“The people who are going to write the code,” he said. “It’s not just about a neurocognitive reaction. [They] they would have to prove, and they claim, that it was intentional. Now you start computer coding.”

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing the plaintiffs has nothing to do with the law itself, but who they challenge and the financial resources available to them.

“[The school board has] suing companies that together probably have a higher net worth than most countries,” Cameron said.

In addition, the case will drag on for years, he predicted.

“You start with a claim this long, the discovery process is going to be years,” he said. “There are different jurisdictions involved. In terms of the complexity of litigation, I don’t think it’s getting any more complicated.”

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