The Ford government and a group of Ontario school boards are slowly moving forward with contrasting strategies to battle distractions in the classroom caused by social media apps like TikTok and Instagram.
A government-led plan to meet with the executives of major social media companies to discuss how to combat distractions has stalled with the rapid shuffle of three education ministers, while school boards gear up to take the same companies to court for billions of dollars.
In May, then-education minister Stephen Lecce told reporters he wanted to sit down with the leaders of companies like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram to talk about how to cut out classroom distractions.
The announcement came as the government faced pressure to back a school-boards-led lawsuit seeking billions from the companies for classroom distractions and the effect their apps had allegedly had on children’s attention spans.
Enlisting the help of social media giants
Instead of backing the suit, Lecce said it was key to get social media companies onside. He suggested social media bosses would know how to stop students from sneaking through age verification requirements or blocks designed to keep them focused in class.
“I look forward to that conversation and I believe that they’re willing to have that conversation in good faith,” Lecce told reporters on May 9.
“We believe social media companies have a role too, working with the government to get this right so that we focus our classrooms on academics. We get the distractions out of class.”
The plans to send out invitations for sit-down meetings with social media giants were promoted by the minister’s office, offering them as a clear alternative to the approach taken by school boards.
At the end of August, Global News contacted the government to ask if the plan was still a priority and how it was progressing. Initially, the Ministry of Education shared a statement suggesting little had happened.
“We always remain open to meeting with companies who want to work with us and provide constructive solutions to help protect students and help them achieve their potential,” a spokesperson said.
After repeated questions, the government revised its statement to highlight progress that had taken place — and was then delayed when Lecce was replaced by Todd Smith in June and then when current Education Minister Jill Dunlop took on the job in August.
“In June, we reached out to social media executives to talk about this issue, and we will continue to work with all companies who want to provide constructive solutions to help protect students online and help them achieve their potential including a focus on getting back to basics in classrooms,” a revised statement said.
A source with the ministry told Global News those invitations were sent out and some conversation had taken place with social media companies, although they did not say which ones.
They stressed conversations were ongoing and, while they could not say when meetings would take place or what the timeline would be, they said the strategy remained a priority for the government.
Ontario NDP education critic Chandra Pasma accused the government of “an inability to follow through” on its commitments to “protect kids from the mental health impacts of social media” in schools.
“Doug Ford and his politicians have talked a big game about holding these companies to account, but they’ve got nothing to show for it,” she said in a statement to Global News.
“Multiple Ontario school boards have filed lawsuits, so have 42 Attorneys General in the United States. It’s time for the government to get serious about holding social media companies to account with real action.”
Taking social media companies to court
The school-board lawsuit was launched by several boards — including in Toronto, Peel and Ottawa — and directed at Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram; Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat; and ByteDance Ltd., which owns Tiktok.
It demanded $4 billion from social media companies, alleging that their products have rewired how children think, behave and learn and that educators and schools have been left to “manage the fallout.”
Duncan Embury, lead counsel for the Ontario school boards, told Global News the lawsuit was still in the “very early” stages of the process, with a case management judge selected to work through some of the early legal issues.
“Whenever you’re holding big companies to account — or trying to hold them to account — for things, there’s going to be a mismatch in the resources and the power and that’s to be expected but I think there’s a collegial process in place to allow the parties to explore the legal issues in the proper form,” he said.
Embury said the lawsuit was directed at all the social media companies named equally, regardless of their platform, for the manner in which they have allegedly sought to monopolize people’s attention.
“What’s equal is the underlying algorithms that are affecting attention and that’s what we’re really focused on drawing attention to is the endless scroll and intermittent variable rewards and other algorithms that are designed to first of all attract eyeballs and then keep them as engaged as long as possible,” he said.
“That has a detrimental effect on attention and focus and that’s really where our (legal) focus is.”
Embury said he expected other school boards could join the legal action in the months to come.