PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Montgomery County is joining more than 3,000 lawsuits accusing social media firms of failing to protect children and teens on social media.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco denied an appeal on Monday from social media giants including Meta, Google, and Tiktok, clearing the way for thousands of lawsuits to move forward.
The lawsuits, filed by states, counties, school districts and individuals claim the social media firms designed their products to be addictive to young users regardless of potential negative impacts.
Bucks County is involved in one of those suits and, following Monday’s federal ruling, Montgomery County joined in.
“They're observing the effects of social media and the associations between social media platforms and negative mental health outcomes in their students,” said Dr. John Herrington, a psychologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia., “and they're trying to do something about it.”
A 2025 statewide survey in Pennsylvania found three or more hours of social media usage a day doubled the risk of depression in children.
“What's been identified is associations between the amount of time spent using social media and negative mental health outcomes, in particular depression and anxiety,” Herrington said. “I think there's a lot of research that needs to be done to understand why that association exists.”
In a separate case, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced Tuesday his office has filed a lawsuit against Tiktok for misleading parents about the prevalence of mature content on its platform. That case was filed in Allegheny County.
The United States doesn’t have legislation regulating social media use during childhood, but age limits have recently been passed in Australia, Indonesia, and France.
“There are a lot of uses of social media platforms that I think have led to demonstrably good things. There are communities of people that are brought together by these tools in ways that can affect change and can be positive,” said Herrington.
“The real challenge is how to maintain and continue those positive effects of these platforms while curtailing the negative effects.”
