SARASOTA, Fla. (SNN) – Sarasota could be the next school district to join a growing class action lawsuit against various social media platforms.
On Tuesday, school board members unanimously voted to initiate litigation against social media companies and to contract with attorneys.
Matthew Mokwa, a partner with the Maher Law Firm in Winter Park, is representing most of the districts in Florida.
“We’re seeing, really an epidemic with our youth,” Mokwa said.
An epidemic of depression, self-harm, and anxiety.
Sarasota is the latest school district to consider latching on to the lawsuit that targets YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook, alleging that those platforms target their kids.
“They’ve utilized neuropsychology to literally create and engineer products that are addictive,” Mokwa said.
He added that it is a calculated move on the social media giants’ parts.
Back in 2021, a former Facebook employee testified that the company knows? it is causing harm, and even hired teams to exploit vulnerabilities through behavioral manipulation.
Mokwa said kids just so happen to be the most susceptible to this.
He hopes this lawsuit brings about stricter guardrails regarding how old people have to be to use the platforms.
“There’s a lot of ways around these parental controls,” Mokwa said. “They’re not nearly as robust as they should be.”
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Terrance Connor said the problem is evident.
“There’s been a lot of resources,” Connor said. “And time, and effort , and money that has been designated to combating the negative effects of that.”
He said joining the lawsuit could potentially help recoup the resources they have put into it and that it would not cost taxpayers.
“Any attorney fees or anything that happens relating to this contract would be taken out of that portion of the settlement,” Connor said.
The Maher law firm is no stranger to cases dealing with addictive cases.
This social media litigation is reminiscent of the Tobacco, JUUL and Opioid cases that all dealt with marketing to a vulnerable population and health problems.