“Maryland school district among 6 heading to trial over lawsuit against social media giants”, 28 July 2025

A Maryland school district is among six in the U.S. that were picked to go to trial for a lawsuit that claims several social media companies are contributing to the youth mental health crisis. 

Harford County Public Schools sued Meta, Google, ByteDance and Snap Inc. in 2023. The lawsuit alleges that the companies' addictive products have impacted nearly 40,000 students, putting pressure on the district to provide more mental health resources. 

School districts across the U.S. have also sued the companies, citing similar allegations. In Maryland, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Cecil, and Howard County schools joined the federal class action lawsuit...

A U.S. District Judge chose six school systems to serve as bellwethers, or test cases that will go to trial first, ahead of the others.

The bellwether cases include Harford County, the DeKalb County School District in Georgia, the Breathitt County Board of Education in Kentucky, Irvington Public Schools in New Jersey, the Tucson Unified School District in Arizona and the Charleston County School District in South Carolina, according to a court filing...

In the lawsuit against the four social media companies, Harford County Schools alleged that their students are struggling with mental health due to excessive use of the platforms. 

According to the lawsuit, the social media platforms are designed to target children and the companies profit from their addictive products, which include Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and more...

The district further claimed that the companies know about the negative impacts their products have, but continue to focus on profit over the well-being of children.

Through the lawsuit, Harford County district leaders hope to force the companies to change their platforms and hold them accountable for the cost of addressing the mental health crisis.