Legal experts say that the hundreds of school districts suing Big Tech over social media’s impact on youth mental health won’t succeed and their litigation will likely be dismissed.

The school districts, although well-intentioned, will have trouble proving that the tech companies have caused depression and anxiety among students, they say.

“It is a lawsuit that is pushing the boundaries in multiple ways,” said Don Gifford, a law professor at the University of Maryland. “The cause of those problems could be things at home. It could be the fact they are going to school and could potentially end up being shot. There are a lot of reasons people get anxious and depressed, so the causation issue is going to be very difficult for the plaintiff.”

“We are dealing with [free] speech and gigantic causation issues,” said Larry Levine, a law professor at the University of the Pacific. “The courts are going to just think it’s too remote or too hard to prove.”

Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest school system in Maryland, this month joined dozens of other school districts in suing several tech companies in federal court. The districts are in several states including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Florida.

The massive litigation accuses the social media companies of profiting from vulnerable children and causing them to be depressed, commit violence or harm themselves.

James Frantz of Frantz Law Group is spearheading the lawsuit on behalf of several of the school districts, anticipating that more than 1,000 districts in at least 35 states will be involved in the litigation within the next month.

The litigation aims to hold big tech liable for using algorithms that target youth, which the lawsuit says are “intentionally and deliberately designed to exploit and cause minors to become addicted, which has caused the harm.”

“It is a travesty what has happened and these social media companies won’t take it upon themselves to regulate themselves,” Mr. Frantz told The Washington Times when he filed the lawsuit for Montgomery County.

His 107-page lawsuit charges that Meta and its social networks Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat; TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance; and Alphabet and its companies, Google and YouTube, should be held accountable under federal law for negligence and conspiracy to cause harm to minors.

Google spokesperson José Castañeda pushed back against the allegations.

“Protecting kids across our platforms has always been core to our work. In collaboration with child development specialists, we have built age-appropriate experiences for kids and families on YouTube, and provide parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” Mr. Castañeda said. 

Representatives from the other companies did not respond to a request for comment. 

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has added more parental controls amid the teen mental health concerns. The move allows parents to monitor how much time their children spend on social media and which accounts they follow.  

The lawsuit charges that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from legal liability for content posted by third parties, shouldn’t be an escape from accountability for the tech giants because the companies know of the harm and do not censor the damaging content.

The Supreme Court heard two cases this term challenging the liability of tech companies — including an opportunity to chip away at Section 230 — but the justices left the protections intact for now.

Lawsuits against the tech companies began earlier this year and have been piling up, so the federal cases are being consolidated in the Northern District of California under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, an Obama appointee. The first lawsuit came from Seattle Public Schools in January.

Mr. Levine, of the University of the Pacific, said he doubts the tech companies will even settle the lawsuits. It will be a costly litigation process for the plaintiffs if the judge gives them an opportunity to go to discovery in an attempt to prove liability on behalf of the social media giants, he said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a 2021 Facebook post that his company doesn’t push content on users to induce a response.

“The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.

Earlier this year, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory report titled “Social Media and Youth Mental Health” that found social media has positive and negative effects on youth. 

It said that social accounts allow self-expression and connections, but noted a study of 12- to 15-year-olds who spent more than three hours a day on social media “faced double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes including symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

And a report this year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that teen girls are experiencing increased sadness and violence related to social media.

“In 2021, 16% of high school students were electronically bullied, including through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media, during the past year. Female students were more likely than male students to be electronically bullied,” that report states.

“Essentially, schools are saying, ‘Look at what’s happening to our youth, and you, the social media companies, are responsible’,” Robert Hachiya, an education professor at Kansas State University, told Education Week in April about the litigation. “There’s no question there is a problem. The issue is, how can social media companies be assigned some kind of liability for this problem?”

He said it isn’t about money. “It’s about getting them to change their practices.”

• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.