Apache Tribe Says Social Media Giants Contributed to Spike in Indigenous Teen Suicides

SAN FRANCISCO — An Apache tribe has sued the five largest social media platform owners, accusing them of playing a large role in the mental health crisis affecting tribal adolescents by using a stream of addictive images and videos designed to exploit young users by keeping them engaged.

In a Jan. 7 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the White Mountain Apache Tribe says suicide rates among its teens are 3.5 to 4 percent higher than the national average and that defendants TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube fueled the spike by using …