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Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

geekwire.com

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Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#111

Post by westurner »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #54
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific law that these firms are supposed to have violated? (Does there need to be? I am not a lawyer.) Does the school district have standing to sue on behalf of the students? (Is the injury that they pay more for mental health services for students?) I’m genuinely curious. There’s a surface analogy to the cases against opioid manufacturers and distributors, but those are controlled substances whereas Yo…

The geek wire article mentions that they are referring to the public nuisance law.

Probably would have been more cost effective to have worked with Amazon in Seattle on the Kids launcher on the Fire OS fork of Android (the one that merges the App Store and Launcher for the kids).

It's not safe to allow school administrators to jam and deny students' (possibly distracting) communications at least on their personal devices, eh?

Perhaps students could voluntarily submit to an App Launcher for focusing on school that deprioritizes content streams that haven't been made educational while attending unpaid conpulsory education programs under threat of prosecution for truancy, not nuisance.

Non- FireOS Android forks have the "Digital Wellbeing" tools for helping oneself focus despite persistent distractions that will always exist IRL.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#112

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

LarryMullins wrote: post #110
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Google/Apple have location services data on the phone, map databases that know where schools are, and the ability to limit use of specific apps or the entire device, do you figure they are similarly liable? It would seem a lot easier to have the platforms solve the problem once than delegate it out to be solved a millions times by every app in the store.

Yes, I think they should be.

It seems completely wrong to me that every app should have a legal obligation to track the location of children to find out if they are at school.

To me the whole enterprise is totalitarian, but if I were trying to build a solution, it would look something like this:

1) Add a school control mode to the devices, similar to existing parental control mode. In this mode the school can block categories of content or usage during school hours. The school administrators don’t get to look at the student browsing data.

2) Schools can enforce a policy that unenrolled devices are banned from campus. The device can make it easy to check using something like NFC or an indicator accessible from the lockscreen (similar to the existing medical ID).

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#113

Post by grecy »

richiebful1 wrote: post #74
grecy wrote: post #49

(Honest question, I don't understand how the law applies globally to the internet) Given that TikTock is Chinese, what happens if they lose a court case in the US? How can anyone force them to pay up or change their ways? I assume the only outcome is either "pay up" or be banned in that jurisdiction? (Assuming they lose) I can't help thinking this is like the all the three letter US agencies trying to force US law on…

There's plenty of TikTok assets in the US to seize. They have an office in Culver City, for example

Given this particular court case is brought by Public Schools in Seattle, WA , does having assets in a totally different state even matter?

It's not like the Federal Government is suing them.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#114

Post by asdff »

kube-system wrote: post #102
finnh wrote: post #62

Seattle Public Schools has seen enrollment drop 30% (!!!) over the past couple years because it is an utter shambles [0]. (correction: many schools have that level of decline or higher, but the decline district-wide is much lower). Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible, without grandfathering, so (eg) my two sons were both forced to repeat a year of math when they cancellled year-up math. An administration…

Maybe the dopamine addictions that many of these kids experience are the reason they’re bored with school. Maybe they’re a contributing reason that remote learning was ineffective. When I was a kid, going to school was the social medium. Even the kids who skipped class physically came to school to meet up. Now that we’ve removed that incentive for attendance, no wonder kids don’t show up.

I know for sure if I was saddled with remote learning during elementary/middle/highschool I would waste all of my time playing games and try skirting by with the bare minimum. After all, that's exactly what we did with the computer lab in the school whenever we got access to it.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#115

Post by LarryMullins »

tempsy wrote: post #106
idopmstuff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?

This is really silly. Putting the onus on kids to fight the addictive cues created by sophisticated social media companies that actively work to make their products even more addictive is absolutely not the right way to address it. Though I do agree that if school districts actually cared enough today they should start by banning social media use on school premises and more aggressively monitor phone usage during cla…

> Though I do agree that if school districts actually cared enough today they should start by banning social media use on school premises and more aggressively monitor phone usage during class.

AFAIK they do, but it is extremely challenging for teachers. Phone use can be very discrete, "aggressively monitoring phone usage" just isn't practical. And when teachers do confiscate phones the backlash against them is frequently strong and fierce. They face hyperbolic rhetoric about such confiscations being dangerous because "what if somebody needs to call 911!?" Even when administrators don't fold to the pressure, the teachers still need to put up with deranged rants and accusations from the parents. It's much easier for teachers if they pretend they didn't see the phone.

And schools can hardly screen every kid entering the school for a phone, every day. It would be invasive, slow, and expensive. Imagine having to go to school an hour early every day because you need to stand in line for TSA before entering the building. Not practical. We can't even keep cellphones out of prisons where invasive cavity searches are permitted. Jamming cell signals on school grounds is out of the question, it isn't legal. So given all these problems, why not sue tech companies for making these systems and services available on school grounds during school hours? I think it probably won't work, but it's worth a shot.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#116

Post by broast »

kube-system wrote: post #102
finnh wrote: post #62

Seattle Public Schools has seen enrollment drop 30% (!!!) over the past couple years because it is an utter shambles [0]. (correction: many schools have that level of decline or higher, but the decline district-wide is much lower). Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible, without grandfathering, so (eg) my two sons were both forced to repeat a year of math when they cancellled year-up math. An administration…

Maybe the dopamine addictions that many of these kids experience are the reason they’re bored with school. Maybe they’re a contributing reason that remote learning was ineffective. When I was a kid, going to school was the social medium. Even the kids who skipped class physically came to school to meet up. Now that we’ve removed that incentive for attendance, no wonder kids don’t show up.

It seems inevitable we will have to adapt to the new normal expected dopamine frequency

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#117

Post by asdff »

LarryMullins wrote: post #105
idopmstuff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?

I expect that'll work about as well as gym teachers teaching kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs. Such admonitions might sometimes work for individual kids, but on the whole they don't work. TikTok/etc is unlike sex and illicit drugs in that it's a commercial enterprise that is operating openly and can in theory be sued into submission. You can't sue a plant anybody can grow in their closet, but you can su…

Exactly. A student will sit there, arms crossed, internally opposing everything the administrator is saying because they've convinced themselves already its bullshit. They already think they will just find work as an influencer:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#118

Post by shaftoe »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #78

I fully support this lawsuit, and I also fully support society taking a stand against algorithmic social media and platforms like YouTube. Moreover, I am saying this as a content creator myself who makes money! The effects of algorithms trained to make the mind addicted are too subtle and too powerful to leave it to individuals to make their own choices about a healthy level of social media use. Moreover, most people…

"The effects of [X] are too subtle and too powerful to leave it to individuals to make their own choices about a healthy level of [X]. Moreover, most people already agree that [X] are not really healthy."

I wholeheartedly disagree with the type of argument you are making.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#119

Post by tempsy »

LarryMullins wrote: post #115
tempsy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really silly. Putting the onus on kids to fight the addictive cues created by sophisticated social media companies that actively work to make their products even more addictive is absolutely not the right way to address it. Though I do agree that if school districts actually cared enough today they should start by banning social media use on school premises and more aggressively monitor phone usage during cla…

> Though I do agree that if school districts actually cared enough today they should start by banning social media use on school premises and more aggressively monitor phone usage during class. AFAIK they do, but it is extremely challenging for teachers. Phone use can be very discrete, "aggressively monitoring phone usage" just isn't practical. And when teachers do confiscate phones the backlash against them is frequ…

Yeah that’s not what I mean. I mean make it a policy to not allow people to have their phones out in class. You can also block certain sites on school WiFi networks. I’m sure some schools already have something like this already. I don’t mean implement body searches.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#120

Post by LarryMullins »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #112
LarryMullins wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think they should be.

It seems completely wrong to me that every app should have a legal obligation to track the location of children to find out if they are at school. To me the whole enterprise is totalitarian, but if I were trying to build a solution, it would look something like this: 1) Add a school control mode to the devices, similar to existing parental control mode. In this mode the school can block categories of content or usage…

> It seems completely wrong to me that every app should have a legal obligation to track the location of children to find out if they are at school.

Start with the big social media apps, then work from there if the general problem persists (I think it won't.)

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