A New York Times examination of internal documents from lawsuits filed by more than 1,400 school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube shows that these firms deliberately targeted students, even as their own safety teams warned about the damage being caused.
The evidence is stark. Snapchat sent phone alerts to teens during school hours, urging them to post what was happening in their classrooms. A Snapchat strategy memo even labeled classroom phone use as “under the desk” time.
Meta went further, hiring “teen ambassadors” and paying high‑schoolers $45 gift cards plus branded gear to promote Instagram to their peers. TikTok contributed millions to the National PTA, partially to fund school events focused on online safety.
Did the companies know what they were doing? The answer is yes, and that’s why the revelations are so unsettling. TikTok’s safety team had advocated for years to turn off notifications during school hours, but senior leadership rejected the proposal. A TikTok employee wrote in 2022, “Teachers are going to hate it. Kids already have smartphone addiction in class,” referring to a feature that nudged users to post within three minutes. A manager replied, “If we assume teens are going to do this anyway, we’d rather them be here on TikTok.”
Google was not blameless either. A 2020 internal memo stated that “investing in schools helps onboard kids into Google’s ecosystem,” and YouTube managers were aware that the algorithm was serving off‑topic videos to students during class time.
What’s next? All four companies recently settled with Breathitt County Schools, a small Kentucky district of roughly 1,500 students, for $27 million. However, that is likely only the start. The upcoming case involves Tucson Unified School District, which is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Cornell Law professor Alexandra Lahav described the litigation as “massive, massive lawsuits” that could ultimately cost these corporations billions. The companies argue that the pandemic and other factors are to blame for the teen mental‑health crisis, and that parents and schools also share responsibility. Whether a court will concur is a separate question.
Even if a court awards a billion dollars, that sum is a drop in the bucket for these firms, which can easily absorb it while generating 100 times that amount in a single year. Unless criminal charges are pursued for plainly harming children and students, and strict legislation is enacted, such practices are unlikely to cease anytime soon.