US Schools Start Legal Actions against Social Media Companies

Social media companies are facing legal action seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth. The lawsuits came recently from the public schools in Seattle, Washington and a suburban school system. But the new lawsuits face a complex legal path.

社交媒体公司正面临要求他们对年轻人的心理健康危机负责法律诉讼。最近的这些诉讼来自华盛顿西雅图的公立学校和一个郊区的学校。但新的诉讼面临着复杂的法律途径。

The lawsuits argue the social media platforms push harmful content. The U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments next month over how much federal law protects the tech industry from such claims. But even if the school systems are able to move forward with their lawsuits, it will be difficult to prove the industry is at fault.

这些诉讼认为社交媒体平台推送一些有害内容。美国最高法院将于下个月听取有关联邦法律在多大程度上保护科技行业免受此类指控的争论。但即使学校和有关系统能够推进他们的诉讼，也很难证明该行业有错。

Carl Szabo is a lawyer with the tech industry trade association NetChoice. He said the companies should not be blamed because they may have shown teens content that caused emotional harm. He compared the legal action to suing a bookstore “because an employee recommended a book that caused emotional harm or made a teenager feel bad.”

Carl Szabo 是技术行业贸易协会 NetChoice 的律师。他说这些公司不应该受到指责，因为他们展示了可能对青少年造成情感伤害的内容的提示。他将此法律诉讼比作好比起诉一家书店，是“因为一名员工推荐了一本造成情感伤害或让青少年感觉不好的书。”

Seattle Public Schools on Friday sued the tech companies behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat. They argued the companies created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children. The Kent School District south of Seattle filed a lawsuit Monday. The districts blame the companies for increasing mental health and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying. They say the mental health problems have made it harder to educate students and have forced schools to take steps like hiring more mental health professionals. Schools have also had to create lesson plans about the effects of social media and provide more training to teachers.

西雅图公立学校周五起诉了 TikTok、Instagram、Facebook、YouTube 和 Snapchat 背后的科技公司。他们指控这些公司将他们的产品定位于儿童，造成了伤害。西雅图南部的肯特学区周一提起诉讼。这个学区指责这些公司增加了心理健康和行为障碍，包括焦虑、抑郁、饮食失调和网络欺凌等。他们说心理健康问题让教育学生变得更加困难，并迫使学校采取措施，比如聘请更多的心理健康专家。学校还必须制定有关社交媒体影响的课程计划，并为教师提供更多培训。

“Our students … face unprecedented learning and life struggles that are amplified by the negative" effects of increased screen time,” Seattle Superintendent Brent Jones said in an emailed statement last week. Federal law helps protect online companies from legal action based on what users post on their platforms. But the lawsuits argue the law does not protect the behavior in this case, where the companies’ own systems push harmful content. If the high court's decision makes clear that tech companies can be held responsible, the school districts will still have to show that social media was in fact to blame. Seattle's lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was about a 30 percent increase on average of students reporting feeling very “sad or hopeless almost every day” for weeks at a time.

西雅图学监布伦特琼斯上周在一封电子邮件声明中说：“我们的学生面临着前所未有的学习和生活困难，这些困难因玩手机或电脑等增加的负面影响而不断加剧，”联邦法律有助于保护在线公司免受基于用户发布内容的法律诉讼在他们的平台上。但诉讼指法律不保护本案中的行为，即公司自己的系统推送有害内容。如果高等法院的判决明确表明科技公司可以承担责任，学区仍可以表明社交媒体实际上是罪魁祸首。西雅图的诉讼称，从 2009 年到 2019 年，平均有大约 30% 的学生报告说一次连续几周感到“几乎每天都感到悲伤或绝望”。

But Szabo pointed out that Seattle's graduation rates have been on the rise since 2019. If social media were so harmful to the district's educational efforts, the graduation rate would not be rising, he said. The lawsuit centers on “how social media harms kids, and there might be evidence of that,” said Eric Goldman. He is a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in Silicon Valley. “But there’s also a lot of evidence that social media benefits teenagers and other kids.” The companies have said they take the safety of their users, especially kids, seriously. Some have introduced tools to make it easier for parents to know whom their children are contacting and have created mental health resources.

但萨博指出，西雅图的毕业率自 2019 年以来一直在上升。他说，如果社交媒体对该地区的教育工作造成如此大的危害，那么毕业率就不会上升。埃里克·戈德曼 (Eric Goldman) 说，这起诉讼的重点是“社交媒体如何伤害孩子，而且可能有证据证明这一点”。他是硅谷圣克拉拉大学法学院的教授。“但也有很多证据表明社交媒体有益于青少年和其他孩子。”这些公司表示，他们非常重视用户的安全，尤其是孩子的安全。有些人引入了工具，让父母更容易知道他们的孩子正在联系谁，并创建了心理健康资源。

In 2021 Facebook records showed that the company knew its Instagram site harmed teenagers. The company’s researchers documented increased body image issues and worsened eating disorders and suicidal thinking among teenage Instagram users. Both cases were filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle and are based on state public nuisance law. In Washington, public nuisance is generally defined as an act that endangers the safety or health of a large number of people.

2021 年，Facebook 的记录显示该公司知道其 Instagram 网站伤害了青少年。该公司的研究人员记录了青少年 Instagram 用户中越来越多的身体形象问题和更严重的饮食失调和自杀念头。这两起案件均在西雅图的美国地方法院基于州公共滋扰而提起。在华盛顿，公共滋扰通常被定义为危害大量人群安全或健康的行为。

Most famously, public nuisance claims helped bring a $246 billion settlement from the tobacco industry in 1998. But public nuisance law also has been a part of lawsuits seeking to hold oil companies responsible for climate change, the gun industry for gun violence, the pharmaceutical industry for the opioid crisis and vaping companies for teen vaping. Jolina Cuaresma is a lawyer with Common Sense Media, which aims to make media safer for children. She said she was excited to see a school district make a public nuisance claim against the tech companies.“Folks have become tired waiting for Congress to do something,” she said.

最著名的是，公害索赔帮助 1998 年烟草业获得了 2460 亿美元的和解。但公害法也一直是寻求让石油公司对气候变化、枪支行业对枪支暴力、制药业负责的诉讼的一部分，像阿片类药物危机和 vaping 公司为青少年售卖电子烟。Jolina Cuaresma 是 Common Sense Media 的一名律师，该公司旨在让媒体对儿童更安全。她说，她很高兴看到学区对科技公司提出公害索赔。她说： “人们已经厌倦了等待国会采取行动”

词汇表:

nuisance:/ˈnjuː.səns/ 恼人的事物（或人）；麻烦的事物（或人）

例句: It's such a nuisance having to rewrite those letters. 还得重写那些信，真是烦人。

make a nuisance of yourself: 造成麻烦；惹人讨厌

lawsuit: /ˈlɔː.suːt/ 诉讼

例句:Two of the directors filed a lawsuit against their former employer.其中的两位董事已经对其前雇主提起诉讼。

unprecedented:/ʌnˈpres.ɪ.den.tɪd/ 史无前例的，空前的；绝无仅有的

例句:This century has witnessed environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale.环境在本世纪遭到了空前的破坏。