(Finance) – New York City has decided to sue large social media companies for contributing to the crisis of Health mental among young people. This week the mayor Eric Adams announced that his administration has initiated legal action against Half (owner of Facebook and Instagram), Alphabet (owner of YouTube), Snap (owner of Snapchat) e ByteDance (owner of TikTok). The accusation is that of having “intentionally designed their platforms to manipulate and create dependence in children and adolescents”.
Adams said that over the past decade “we have seen how much the online world can create dependence and overwhelm, exposing our children to a continuous flow of harmful content and fueling the national mental health crisis of our young people”. Furthermore, according to the thesis of the American city administration, the companies would have used the research psychological to make their platforms as engaging as possible, pushing young users to spend more and more time on them. This would lead to depression, anxiety, self-harm and even suicide among teenagers.
New York City then asked for a compensation and wants companies to put stronger safeguards in place to protect minors. It’s not the first legal action social media companies have faced. Hundreds of complaints have already arrived from parents and school districts.
However, the companies rejected the requests accusations. A spokesperson for Meta said the company wants teens to have “safe, age-appropriate online experiences.” TikTok said it will continue to work to keep the community safe. YouTube denied the allegations, saying it created “services and policies to provide age-appropriate experiences for young people.”
(Photo: Viktor Hanacek)