The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit for Minnesota against the parent companies of several social media sites for their alleged role related to an alarming surge in mental illness and suicide rates among Indigenous youth in recent years.

The complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court over the weekend followed similar lawsuits by 33 states, including Minnesota, against the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

A partner at Minneapolis-based law firm Robins Kaplan LLP, representing the tribe, said they made the case in California court because that’s where the defendants are based, and the court has an established procedure to handle related cases from across the U.S.

Several warnings and reports from top officials were also released over the last year, including by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

RELATED: AG Ellison asking Minnesotans to share stories of social media impacts

Robins Kaplan LLP brought such litigation on behalf of tribal nations for the first time, beginning in April.

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and four other tribal nations in North Dakota and Wisconsin allege in separate lawsuits that social media harms Indigenous children and teenagers more severely, and the resources on tribal lands to address it are slimmer.

“It’s not just the lawyers saying that the two things are connected,” began Robins Kaplan LLP partner Tara Sutton in an exclusive interview with 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS on Monday.

“Scientists have drawn conclusions and concluded, along with the U.S. Surgeon General, that social media use has targeted children.”

She argued that the social media companies named in the latest lawsuit knew their platforms could cause harm and designed them to hook young people anyway.

“There was definitely an intent behind that,” she said. “And that’s the basis of all these lawsuits.”

Sutton pointed to a parallel line drawn between the skyrocketing use of social media in recent years and a rise in youth mental illness and suicide. The rate of suicide was far more staggering for Indigenous kids and teens, according to 2021 data from the Minnesota Department of Health.

“So if you compare [Indigenous] youth to white America, it’s five times the rate,” Sutton said.

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa became the first tribal nation in Minnesota to sue the social media sites. The five total lawsuits filed by Robins Kaplan created the first cases like it in the U.S. to be brought by tribal governments, Sutton said.

The complaints allege Native kids and teens are “equally gripped” to these sites, exacerbating the mental health crisis on reservations where there are fewer resources to combat it.

“That’s why tribal communities got involved in the opioid litigation, to make sure that those settlement dollars went into tribal communities because they simply don’t have the infrastructure and they don’t have the dollars to provide the type of services that are necessary to treat mental health issues,” Sutton said.

She said a win in this case would mean a payout from the companies in question that the tribe would then use to bolster mental health services and education in schools and throughout the community, so they can better — and independently — combat the crisis.

Google — which owns YouTube, and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, were the only companies to respond to a request for comment on Monday.

“The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” wrote Google spokesperson José Castañeda.

Read the full statement from Google below:

“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”

José Castañeda, Google Spokesperson

A spokesperson for Meta pointed to “work we’re doing to help provide teens with safe experiences online,” saying the company “developed more than 30 tools and features to do this…”

When asked about the effectiveness of the “tools and features,” Sutton said, “I think that’s yet to be seen.”

Read the full statement from Meta below:

“We want to reassure every parent that we have their interests at heart in the work we’re doing to help provide teens with safe experiences online. We’ve developed more than 30 tools and features to do this, including ways for parents to set time limits for their teens on our apps, age verification technology, automatically restricting teens under 16 from receiving DMs from people they don’t follow, and sending notifications encouraging teens to take regular breaks. These are complex issues but we will continue working with experts and listening to parents to develop new tools, features and policies that are effective and meet the needs of teens and their families.”

Spokesperson for Meta