Four Canadian schools accuse social media companies of reshaping how children think

Four of Canada’s largest school boards have launched a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the social media companies Meta, Snap Inc and ByteDance, accusing them of acting in a “high-handed, reckless, malicious, and reprehensible manner” with products the boards claim harm student learning and “rewire” how children think, the Guardian reported.

The four district boards – Ottawa-Carleton, Toronto, Peel and Toronto Catholic – filed four separate statements of claim in Ontario’s superior court of justice on Wednesday.

In recent years, educators have spent a growing share of their time in the classroom attempting to get students to focus, the boards said. The Guardian said in its report, adding that they blame the addictive nature of social media and apps like Instagram, TikTok and SnapChat which they say have also led to a spike in cyberbullying and mental health issues.