Lansing Sun

The Lansing School District has joined several other school districts in a lawsuit against multiple social media platforms for its harmful effects on adolescents.

At the board's May 18 meeting, Superintendent Ben Shuldiner introduced an item about litigation against the social media companies, a big reason being the addictive nature these platforms created which include addictive tendencies and outbursts in students. 

"There was a presentation that was made by our counsel to the board officers about a possible litigation where school districts are joining to basically be part of litigation against social media," Shuldiner said. "The idea being that, you know, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc., causes quite a lot of harm to children."

Shuldiner explained that social media apps “are showing huge costs to the district, everything from Tik Tok challenges to destroy bathrooms to bullying and fighting, etc. We were approached by our counsel to be part of this larger litigation, and the board officers got a presentation. They seemed interested, and in order for us to move forward, we of course, want to and have to take action about that.” Shuldiner believed that “certainly there's a lot of school districts over the next couple of months that are going to be part of it.”

Board President Rachel Willis also spoke on the matter, sharing that there isn't a fee to join the lawsuit. "[The] only a fee is taken if there's recovery on behalf of the district of or awarded damages," Willis said during the meeting. "And so there can either be a monetary or non-monetary gain or outcome of this. One of the things that specifically would be one of the non-monetary potential outcomes would be injunctive relief. That would at least require some specific guardrails around parental controls. And when I heard that even if that's all we get out of this, it's better oversight and parental controls for permission for use. I think we're winning.” 

Willis also explained that it would be possible the district is chosen to present additional evidence in federal courts of the physical impact on their facilities, but that if that were to be the case it would not be a burden on staff to submit.

The board did vote to participate in the case, which was filed in the Northern District of California courts and has been labeled MDL No. 3047. The lawsuit calls out defendants like “Meta Platforms, Inc., Instagram LLC, Snap, Inc., TikTok, Inc., ByteDance, Inc., YouTube LLC, Google LLC, and Alphabet Inc.” and accuses them of “conduct [which] results in various emotional and physical harms, including death.”