By James Matthews
The Trillium Lakelands District School Board has joined other Ontario boards in a lawsuit against social media companies.
The local board, along with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, York Catholic District School Board, the Ottawa Catholic School Board, and the District School Board of Niagara are bringing a lawsuit against Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok.
Meta is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp.
Private schools Holy Name of Mary College School and Eitz Chaim have also joined the lawsuit that accuses the social media companies of disrupting the education system and hindering student learning.
According to media reports, the new lawsuits bring the cumulative amount being sought to over $7 billion. The boards are seeking an additional $2.6 billion on top of the $4.5 billion originally sought.
While still in its early stages, the litigation calls on social media giants to make their products safer, to compensate school boards for its disruption to education, and to support TLDSB students’ fundamental right to education.
Wes Hahn, the TLDSB’s education director, said in a letter to parents that the legal action alleges the social media companies “have negligently designed and marketed addictive products that have disrupted our educational mandate and obligation to enhance student achievement and well-being.”
The local board has retained the firm Neinstein LLP on a contingency fee basis, which means there is a fee only if there is a positive result. The lawyers’ fees would be paid from the damages awarded.
Litigation costs will not come from the school board’s budget, Hahn said.
“As parents/guardians, many of you know firsthand the impact that social media products have had on students,” he said. “In fact, it’s rewiring the way they think, act, behave, and learn.
“As a result, educators are spending increased classroom time managing issues caused by social media, administrators are adapting to the needs of the student body with significant attention, focus, and mental health concerns, and the changing behavioral dynamics of the student population are causing significant shifts in the educational landscape and huge strains on school boards’ finite resources.”
The impact of social media products on student learning is a multifaceted problem that requires a multipronged approach.
One of those prongs is to restrict the use of phones and devices in schools.
“But, as we know, compulsive social media use outside the classroom will continue to permeate the education system and impact student learning unless change is made by the social media companies,” Hahn said.
Indeed, education experts have long argued that social media has negatively rewired the way children think, behave, and learn.
“The addictive properties of the products designed by social media giants have compromised all students’ ability to learn, disrupted classrooms and created a student population that suffers from increasing mental health harms,” Schools for Social Media Change, an umbrella group of some plaintiffs in legal actions, said in a press release.
