United States of America: Announced City of New York lawsuit against digital platforms Meta, Siculus, Snap, Bytedance, and Google for allegedly targeting young people and failing to disclose potential harm

On 14 February 2024, a public lawsuit was filed by the City of New York, the City School District of New York, and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation against several digital platforms, including Meta Platforms, Facebook Holdings, Facebook Operations, Meta Payments, Siculus, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, ByteDance, TikTok, ByteDance, Google and YouTube. The lawsuit alleges that these platforms have targeted school-aged children as a core market, designed their platforms to attract, capture, and addict youth, and failed to provide adequate warnings about serious and reasonably foreseeable health risks associated with the use of the platforms and to exercise reasonable care in developing, designing, operating, labelling, marketing advertising their platforms. The plaintiffs argue that the platforms' actions have significantly disrupted the learning environment in schools, diverted resources from other student needs, and contributed to a youth mental health crisis in New York City. The lawsuit demands a trial by jury and seeks a judgment holding the defendants jointly and severally liable, an order to cease the described public nuisance and prevent its recurrence, an injunction to prohibit further actions contributing to the nuisance, as well as actual compensatory, and punitive damages.