Five Ontario school boards are suing the companies behind major social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, alleging their addictive products have caused the students to suffer from mental health issues, and causing widespread damage and disruption to the education system.

Recently, five school boards in Ontario filed a lawsuit against the major social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

Their lawsuit says that these platforms are designed to be addictive and have caused all kinds of problems for the education system. The lawsuit says social media causes children to suffer from mental health issues, and it increases distraction, social withdrawal, and cyberbullying. And it causes damage and disruption to the classroom, putting all kinds of new burdens on teachers who are already dealing with shrinking budgets and increased class sizes.

The $4.5 billion lawsuit follows over 200 lawsuits by school boards in the United States in the past year against the same companies, making similar claims.

This week, the Ontario government, which has called the Canadian lawsuit a waste of time and money, announced it was doubling down on its 2019 ban on cellphones in schools as a way to address the problem.

But is a ban the answer to the impact of technology we know is incredibly pervasive, addictive and harmful? Not to mention, often racist?

Research shows technologies are not neutral: They’re embedded with and actively reinforce structures of racism. A survey of Canadian children in grades 7 to 11 found nearly half of participants reported seeing racist or sexist content online, and youth from marginalized groups were more likely than others to encounter this type of content. So, what’s to be done?

On this week’s Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast, our guests are two scholars and former teachers who look at the intersection of race, technology and education. They say social media has become part of who we are and it’s not going anywhere.

Instead of trying to ban it and monitoring students to make sure they adhere to the ban, schools should focus on improving digital media literacy and critical thinking — for students and their teachers.

Beyhan Farhadi is Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Equity at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and Kisha McPherson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“How can we effectively use [the cellphone] within the classroom? It could be a research tool… it could be a pedagogical tool to teach and to do different things. With the money that is put towards these surveillance measures and put towards these forms of punitive decisions…it really begs the question of whether or not we’re really concerned about students or are we just finding ways to maintain a status quo of control….” – Kisha McPherson, Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University

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Hind Khoudary, based in the Gaza strip, has been reporting for Al Jazeera English and her own social media channels since Oct. 7, 2023. Media experts say western news outlets, not allowed into Gaza, should create more partnerships with journalists like Khoudary, shown here on Nov. 3, 2023. Hind Khoudary/Instagram

Motaz Azaiza, Hind Khoudary and Bisan Owda are all Palestinian journalists who have reported on the war in Gaza. And although Azaiza has had to leave and now reports from afar, Owda and Khoudary still remain in Gaza. They, along with several others, are providing vital information on the devastation Palestinians face everyday.

This is something that many Canadian journalists have been unable to do, mainly because international journalists are not allowed into Gaza, except on controlled expeditions hosted by the Israel Defense Forces. So Palestinian journalists are providing a critical source of information.

But the stories they are telling are not being picked up by most western news outlets.

And many western journalists have spoken out against what they say is a stifling of Palestinian voices and perspectives in their newsrooms. In February, many CNN staffers felt that the media giant had a pro-Israel slant, according to a report in The Guardian. According to these CNN reporters, Palestinian sources were often met with skepticism while Israeli sources were usually accepted at face value. Others accused the network of censoring journalists who wanted to incorporate more Palestinian sources.

There have been similar accusations from within the New York Times and other major news outlets.

Christiane Amanpour appears on the April 8 episode of ‘The Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart to discuss the U.S.’s delicate treatment of Israel, including journalists and the need for strong political leadership in the Middle East.

These allegations raise a lot of questions.

What is the role of the news media in reporting on war and conflict in other countries?

Who is a reliable source? And what constitutes independent and objective journalism — or does it even exist?

These are questions Sonya Fatah and Asmaa Malik, our guests on this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about. They are both professors of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on newsroom culture, global reporting practices and equity in journalism. They are co-authors of a recent article in The Walrus detailing press freedom concerns they say go far beyond Gaza.

“The deep injustice that’s being done is that this work [of Palestinian journalists on the ground] isn’t being amplified,” Malik says. “News organizations can amplify those voices, but also augment them and add to them and bring that human perspective to this cold clinical idea of ‘objectivity’ and reportage as we understand it.”

Adds Fatah: “Instead of embracing them and instead of standing up and saying this is a huge crisis and we are in support, there has been silence.”

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A family living through the Bengal famine, a time when three million people died due to starvation, 1943. (Wikimedia Commons)

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