Overview

• City Hall, the public school district and NYC Health + Hospitals are plaintiffs in the Manhattan federal case seeking damages for what they call a public nuisance and gross negligence.
• The filing cites local data linking heavy screen time to lost sleep and chronic absenteeism, with 77.3% of high schoolers reporting three or more hours of daily screen time.
• Police figures referenced in the suit attribute at least 16 subway-surfing deaths since 2023 to viral social media posts, including two girls aged 12 and 13 this month.
• Google spokesperson José Castañeda rejected the allegations about YouTube as untrue, describing it as a streaming service with dedicated youth safety tools.
• New York City withdrew from earlier California state litigation to join roughly 2,050 related federal cases centered in Oakland, positioning its claims within the larger national battle over platform design and youth harms.