Arkansas sues YouTube, accusing platform of fuelling youth mental health crisis

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Alphabet on Monday, accusing the video-sharing platform of exacerbating a mental health crisis among the state's youth.

The lawsuit, filed in state court, claims YouTube's addictive nature violates Arkansas' deceptive trade practices and public nuisance laws, leading the state to spend millions on expanded mental health services for young people.

"YouTube amplifies harmful material, doses users with dopamine hits, and drives youth engagement and advertising revenue," the lawsuit states. It alleges that youth mental health issues have worsened in direct correlation with the growth of social media, especially targeting YouTube as a prime contributor.

In response, Alphabet's Google, also named in the lawsuit, denied the claims. "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work," said Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda. He emphasized the company's collaboration with mental health and parenting experts to provide age-appropriate content and robust parental controls, adding, "The allegations in this complaint are simply not true."

Despite YouTube's policies requiring users under 17 to seek parental consent and linking accounts for those under 13 to a parental account, the lawsuit points out that it remains easy for minors to bypass the restrictions.

The legal action is part of a larger push by lawmakers and regulators to address the negative impacts of social media on younger users.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for mandatory warning labels on social media platforms about their potential risks to youth, likening them to cigarette warnings.

This lawsuit follows similar actions taken by Arkansas last year against TikTok and Meta, Facebook's parent company, over concerns about the safety of children on their platforms.

Along with TikTok, YouTube remains one of the most popular platforms for children and teens, despite being scrutinized for hosting videos that encourage gun violence, eating disorders, and self-harm.

In June, YouTube changed its policies on firearm-related content, restricting videos that show how to remove safety devices and other weapon-related content to users 18 and older.

Arkansas' lawsuit also accuses YouTube's algorithms of steering young users toward harmful adult content and facilitating the spread of child sexual abuse material. While the lawsuit does not specify damages, it seeks an order requiring YouTube to fund programs for the prevention, education, and treatment of "excessive and problematic use of social media."