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Not to spoil the good time here, but where’s the standing? I don’t think the courts have ever broadly recognized schools’ standing with respect to things that

Not to spoil the good time here, but where’s the standing? I don’t think the courts have ever broadly recognized schools’ standing with respect to things that can harm students outside of the school’s walls. I would think that the appropriate regulatory tool here is having each school (or district) institute bans on device use during school hours, not suing random companies.

jonnycomputer 3y ago
Not a lawyer, but I think you are right that the case will end up hinging on this; my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission. I don't think this is wrong per se, but it's hard to see a court accepting that broad environmental concerns of this sort fall under schools' purviews. Put another way: if schools can sue social media companies for disrupting the educational environment, what stops them from suing oil companies for making the world uninhabitable for their students? The problem isn't factuality (the school is arguably correct in both cases!), but scope.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
I would venture to guess they are suing BECAUSE they can’t do anything else I’ll tell you that for the schools that my kids go to, parents would most likely throw a massive tantrum if they banned phones. Beyond that…it wouldn’t work and would either be ignored and just another mis-applied or selectively punished thing or further turn every school into prison-lite. In reality the entire school system is a sham intended to be public day care so that parents don’t have any reason they can’t go to work. So anything that would functionally work to improve education is orthogonal at best.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  The public school system I went to has around a million students in it, and had a complete ban on cellphones until 2014. My understanding is that phones are still banned on a school-by-school basis, although there is no longer a system-wide policy. Banning phones in schools isn’t popular with students (and is unenforceable on the long tail), but it’s the only actual tool that schools have here. Filing lawsuits with social media companies makes for fun headlines, but it doesn’t grant them standing.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Literal prisons are full of cell phones There’s literally no way to physically ban phones with any efficacy EVEN IF they had prison level of monitoring and standardization

jonnycomputer 3y ago

Not a lawyer, but I think you are right that the case will end up hinging on this; my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission.

woodruffw 3y ago
> my guess is that the argument will be that having a whole bunch of messed up social-media addicts at school is disruptive to the educational environment, preventing them from fulfilling their mission. I don't think this is wrong per se, but it's hard to see a court accepting that broad environmental concerns of this sort fall under schools' purviews. Put another way: if schools can sue social media companies for disrupting the educational environment, what stops them from suing oil companies for making the world uninhabitable for their students? The problem isn't factuality (the school is arguably correct in both cases!), but scope.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

I would venture to guess they are suing BECAUSE they can’t do anything else I’ll tell you that for the schools that my kids go to, parents would most likely throw a massive tantrum if they banned phones. Beyond that…it wouldn’t work and would either be ignored and just another mis-applied or selectively punished thing or further turn every school into prison-lite. In reality the entire school system is a sham intended to be public day care so that parents don’t have any reason they can’t go to work. So anything that would functionally work to improve education is orthogonal at best.

woodruffw 3y ago
The public school system I went to has around a million students in it, and had a complete ban on cellphones until 2014. My understanding is that phones are still banned on a school-by-school basis, although there is no longer a system-wide policy. Banning phones in schools isn’t popular with students (and is unenforceable on the long tail), but it’s the only actual tool that schools have here. Filing lawsuits with social media companies makes for fun headlines, but it doesn’t grant them standing.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Literal prisons are full of cell phones There’s literally no way to physically ban phones with any efficacy EVEN IF they had prison level of monitoring and standardization