New York City has launched a sweeping lawsuit against some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players — including Facebook, Google, Snapchat, and TikTok — accusing them of driving a mental health crisis among children through the deliberate design of addictive social media platforms.
Filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, the 327-page complaint targets Meta Platforms (owner of Facebook and Instagram), Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube), Snap Inc., and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. The city alleges that these firms have been “grossly negligent” in exploiting the psychology of young users for profit, fueling compulsive screen use that has left families, schools, and health systems to pick up the pieces.
The case aligns New York with more than 2,000 similar suits consolidated in a California federal court, but marks a major escalation by one of the country’s largest municipal governments. With a population of 8.48 million — including roughly 1.8 million minors — the city is one of the most prominent plaintiffs to join the nationwide litigation effort. Its school and healthcare systems have also signed on.
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Google spokesperson José Castañeda dismissed the claims, insisting YouTube is “a streaming service, not a social network where people connect with friends.” The other companies named in the suit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the filing, the platforms were “engineered to capture attention and manipulate the developing brains of youth,” encouraging extended use through reward loops and endless scrolling. The document cites a 2023 survey showing that more than three-quarters of New York City high school students spend over three hours daily on screens — a pattern the city links to sleep loss, anxiety, and school absenteeism.
The city’s health commissioner declared social media a public health hazard earlier this year, warning that its impact now rivals other youth risk factors such as substance abuse. Officials say New York has had to divert increasing public funds to address what they call an “engineered epidemic” of digital dependency.
The lawsuit also draws a direct line between online behavior and real-world dangers, including a deadly rise in “subway surfing” — the social media–driven trend of clinging to moving trains for viral videos. Police say at least 16 young New Yorkers have died since 2023 in such incidents, including two girls aged 12 and 13 this month.
The complaint concluded that the defendants should be held accountable for the harms their conduct had caused, adding that, as things stood, the public was left to address the nuisance and bear the cost.