The Ontario Superior Court last Friday dismissed Meta, Snapchat and TikTok’s motion to dismiss the case of School Boards v Meta et al.

Last March, Ontario schools and boards brought litigation against the major social media players for disrupting student learning and the education system in general. The social platforms brought a motion to dismiss the claim, but to no avail; Justice Janet Leiper saw merit in the schools’ case and is allowing it to proceed.

“The statistics, if true, and the methods and outcomes of social media on the learning environment reveal broad effects that impact not only the immediate access to the right to an education, but to the futures of many young people,” Leiper stated in her decision. “It is arguable that an addictive product that interferes with the mental health and educational aspirations of students is a public nuisance that requires a remedy.”

Duncan Embury, partner and head of litigation with Neinstein, the firm leading the lawsuit on behalf of school boards, called the decision “the first step in achieving justice for the education system, and ultimately the next generation of leaders. Now that we’ve been successful in this motion, the case can proceed to trial to hold social media giants accountable.”

In the suit, the schools are calling for the social media companies to redesign their products in order to keep students safe. Allegedly, these changes will result in a reduction in mental health harms to youth and disruptions to the education system. The lawsuit also seeks compensation on behalf of school boards for the losses related to tackling the crisis social media has created in schools.

Last year, Schools for Social Media Change, an umbrella group of the plaintiffs in the suits, said “the addictive properties of the social media products have compromised students’ ability to learn, disrupted classrooms and created a student population that suffers from increasing mental health harms. As a result, social media companies have forced school boards to divert significant resources including personnel, hours, funds and attention to combat the growing crisis caused by their products.”

In response to the new, Meta released a statement. “We strongly disagree with the allegations and believe the evidence will demonstrate our commitment to supporting young people,” a spokesperson said. “We’ve developed numerous tools to support parents and teens, and we recently announced that we’re significantly changing the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new Teen Accounts, a protected experience for teens that automatically limits who can contact them and the content they see. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously in these cases.”