PREVIEW

NYC Sues TikTok Facebook and YouTube for Allegedly Harming Kids’ Mental Health. NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced the lawsuit on Feb. 14, NBC News reports. The parent companies of TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are being sued for allegedly harming the mental health of New York's young adults and children. The suit claims that Meta, Snap, ByteDance and Google "designed, developed, produced, operated, promoted, distributed, and marketed their platforms to attract, capture, and addict youth, with minimal parental oversight". "Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis." "Today, we’re taking bold action on behalf of millions of New Yorkers to hold these companies accountable for their role in this crisis, and we’re building on our work to address this public health hazard." Mayor Eric Adams, via statement. Spokespeople for the defendants deny the allegations. "We regularly partner with experts to understand emerging best practices, and will continue to work to keep our community safe by tackling industry-wide challenges." TikTok spokesperson, via statement. "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience online has always been core to our work.", Google spokesperson, via statement. "We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools and features to support them and their parents." Meta spokesperson, via statement. "While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence." Snap Inc. spokesperson, via statement. THIS VIDEO MUST NOT BE EDITED FOR LENGTH TO COMBINE WITH OTHER CONTENT