Four major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their products, alleging the way they’re designed have negatively rewired the way children think, behave and learn and have thus disrupted the way schools operate.
The public district school boards of Toronto, Peel and Ottawa, along with Toronto’s Catholic counterpart, are looking for upwards of $4 billion in damages from Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd., which operate the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok respectively, according to statements of claim filed Wednesday.
“The influence of social media on today’s youth at school cannot be denied.