From New Jersey’s attorney general to the school district where Adriana Kuch died by suicide after being cyberbullied, agencies are filing lawsuits against platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, desperate to block students from using social media as a weapon to bludgeon young victims.
One student says that cyberbullying continues at Central Regional High School, where Kuch was attacked.
“There’s about nine new videos from this year of school fights being posted on Instagram because nobody’s stopping them,” said Central Regional sophomore Emma, whose mother didn’t want NJ Spotlight News to use her last name. “Kids are recording it in the hallways. Kids are recording arguments with teachers and posting them everywhere. It’s bad. It’s the same as last year all over again.”
Her mom, Jill Heff, remains unimpressed by the class-action lawsuit that Central Regional is joining against multiple social media platforms. According to Susan Cowdrick, the president of the school board, the suit aims “to change how these companies operate, and hopefully compel them to take responsibility and make changes.”
“I personally feel they’re doing it just to c-y-a because of what happened with Adriana,” Heff said.
New Jersey has joined 41 other states in a class-action suit demanding accountability. Meanwhile, the state’s Anti-Bullying Task Force last week released a report which noted the “highest levels of HIB (Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying) reported since the state began collecting information,” and “an alarming 7,672 incidents of bullying were confirmed,” with 19,138 incidents reported statewide.
“The social media companies are completely and always have been completely irresponsible and paying no attention,” said task force member Stuart Green. “And in fact, making enormous profits off the suffering of kids.”
Green, who helped write the task force report, said he wishes it had taken a tougher stand on how school districts handle bullying. “The task force report itself, although it has multiple good elements in it, does nothing to create those meaningful consequences for administrators who don’t address the issue,” he said.
He encourages districts to fight cyberbullying by making students stow away their phones in special locking pouches during school. The Central Regional district distributed phone pockets for students but enforcement is hardly uniform, Emma said. She would rather the district spent funds to hire more mental health counselors to help troubled kids.
“So I knew Adriana personally and because of everything going on, it’s frustrating to me because there were supposed to be changes this year and there’s not,” she said.
Central Regional district officials were unavailable for comment.
