FAIRVIEW TWP — The Karns City Area School District board of education voted Monday to join a federal lawsuit against various social media outlets that have “promoted unchecked social media to adolescents” according to superintendent Eric Ritzert.

Named as defendants are Meta Platforms (Facebook’s parent company), Meta Payments, Siculus, Facebook Operations, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, Google and YouTube.

While all of the districts involved in the suit are seeking settlements for damages caused to student population, Ritzert said that, ideally, what comes out of this lawsuit is more vigilance from social media outlets on content posted by adolescents.

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials filed the suit, which alleges that the dramatic uptick in social media usage by adolescents “is no accident” and “is the result of defendants’ studied efforts to induce young people to compulsively use their services.”

Ritzert said that even though vaping is a problem among students, social media probably causes more disruptions in the school environment, citing bullying and harassment that occur on these platforms that cause discord in the student community.

“Social media also has a lot of good aspects, if used appropriately,” Ritzert said, “and that is something, as an educational entity, we strive to try and teach them — how to appropriately use it and possibly make better decisions.”

Ritzert said parents — rightfully so — reach out to the school when their children are being bullied online to try and stop the behavior, but the school has no authority on what occurs between students outside of school hours and grounds.

“I think if social media developers had more checks and balances in who has the accounts, it may help diminish the negativity that takes place,” he added.

District solicitor Thomas May said that joining in the lawsuit wouldn’t cost the district anything, even if there’s no successful settlement.

“There’s no reason not to do it,” May said.