Overview

• Filed on Oct. 8 in Manhattan federal court, the suit by the City of New York, its school district, and NYC Health + Hospitals seeks damages and alleges gross negligence and a public nuisance.
• The complaint argues the platforms are designed to exploit adolescent psychology to drive compulsive use, citing city data on heavy screen time and widespread chronic absenteeism.
• Plaintiffs link viral trends to real-world risks, noting NYPD findings that social media motivates “subway surfing” and at least 16 related deaths since 2023, including two this month.
• Google’s YouTube disputed the allegations as “simply not true” and said the case misunderstands the service, while other companies had not issued detailed responses in initial reports.
• New York City withdrew an earlier California case to align with roughly 2,050 related suits in the Oakland MDL, placing the new case into coordinated pretrial proceedings.