Maryland school district among 6 others heading to trial over lawsuit against social media giants
Harford County Public Schools sued Meta, Google, ByteDance and Snap Inc. in 2023. The lawsuit alleges that the companies' addictive products have impacted nearly 4,000 students, putting pressure on the district to provide more mental health resources.
School districts across the U.S. have also sued the companies, citing similar allegations. In Maryland, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Cecil, and Howard County schools joined the federal class action lawsuit.
A U.S. District Judge chose six school systems to serve as bellwethers, or test cases that will go to trial first, ahead of the others.
The bellwether cases include the DeKalb County School District in Georgia, the Breathitt County Board of Education in Kentucky, Irvington Public Schools in New Jersey, the Tucson Unified School District in Arizona and the Charleston County School District in South Carolina, according to a court filing.
The court also chose five similar lawsuits that were filed by individuals to serve as bellwethers. The cases will go to trial sometime in 2026, court records say.
"We are proud to represent the Harford County Board of Education in this litigation to hold social media companies accountable for their intentionally addictive and harmful algorithms that exploit young people and disturb their learning environments. We look forward to this case advancing as part of the nationwide effort to address social media harms," said Attorney Matt Legg with Brockstedt Mandalas Frederico.
In the lawsuit against the four social media companies, Harford County Schools alleged that their students are struggling with mental health due to excessive use of the platforms.
According to the lawsuit, the social media platforms are designed to target children and the companies profit from their addictive products, which include Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and more.
"The algorithms driving these platforms are designed to exploit young users' brains in a way comparable to nicotine use to manipulate users into staying on the platform as long as possible," District leaders said in a 2023 statement.
The district further claims that the companies know about the negative impacts their products have, but continue to focus on profit over the well-being of children.
"Schools, meant to be a safe space for children, are now unable to keep up with the mental health service demand," the district said.
Through the lawsuit, district leaders hope to force the companies to change their platforms and hold them accountable for the cost of addressing the mental health crisis.
"We need the support and long-term funding to remove the financial burden from taxpayers and instead place it on the companies substantially contributing to and benefiting from this crisis," Harford County Board of Education President Dr. Carol Mueller said.
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