Arkansas Lawsuit: Google's YouTube Fuels Youth Mental Health Crisis

Arkansas has filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google, accusing the video-sharing platform of deliberately fostering addiction and contributing to a mental health crisis among the state’s youth.

AP News reports that in a new lawsuit, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) has sued YouTube and Google parent company Alphabet in state court, alleging violations of Arkansas’ deceptive trade practices and public nuisance laws. The lawsuit asserts that the video-sharing site is intentionally designed to be addictive, leading to increased mental health issues among young people and causing the state to spend millions on expanded mental health services and other resources for its youth.

According to the complaint, “YouTube amplifies harmful material, doses users with dopamine hits, and drives youth engagement and advertising revenue. As a result, youth mental health problems have advanced in lockstep with the growth of social media, and in particular, YouTube.” The lawsuit claims that YouTube’s algorithms direct young users to harmful adult content and facilitate the spread of child sexual abuse material.

Google, which owns YouTube and is also named as a defendant in the case, has denied the allegations. In a statement, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in this complaint are simply not true.”

Currently, YouTube requires users under 17 to obtain parental permission before using the site, and accounts for users younger than 13 must be linked to a parental account. However, it is possible to watch YouTube content without an account, and children can easily misrepresent their age.

Arkansas has previously filed similar lawsuits against TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta, alleging that these social media companies misled consumers about the safety of children on their platforms and the protection of users’ private data. These cases are still pending in state court. Additionally, Arkansas enacted a law requiring parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts, although this measure has been blocked by a federal judge.

Along with TikTok, YouTube is one of the most popular sites among children and teens. Both platforms have faced scrutiny in the past for hosting and, in some cases, promoting videos that encourage gun violence, eating disorders, and self-harm. In June, YouTube updated its policies on firearm videos, prohibiting any content demonstrating how to remove firearm safety devices and restricting videos showing homemade guns, automatic weapons, and certain firearm accessories to users 18 and older.

The Arkansas lawsuit does not seek specific damages but calls for YouTube to fund prevention, education, and treatment programs for “excessive and problematic use of social media.”

The AP contributed to this report.