By Kayla DeKraker
Editor’s note: The following story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know battles harmful thoughts, please dial 988 for help.
Two grieving families have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook.
The lawsuit states that design flaws and insufficient safety measures on the social media platform contributed to their teenage sons’ deaths by suicide after falling victim to online “sextortion” scams.
“This was known. This was not an accident. This was not a coincidence,” said Matthew Bergman, the families’ lawyer. This was a foreseeable consequence of the deliberate design decisions that Meta made. Their own documents show that they were very aware of this extortion phenomenon, and they simply chose to put their profits over the safety of young people.”
He added, “Meta’s secret is out. For years, Meta knew Instagram was a hunting ground for predators, yet chose to protect engagement metrics over children’s lives. That conscious decision to connect random strangers to children has cost families their sons and daughters, turning Instagram into the epicenter of sextortion‑related youth suicides,” he continued. “Had they chosen to follow their own internal recommendations they could have saved countless lives.”
Related: Can Meta’s New AI Features Be Turned Off?
Meta responded to the lawsuits.
The tech giant said, “Sextortion is a horrific crime. We support law enforcement to prosecute the criminals behind it, and we continue to fight them on our apps on multiple fronts.”
Meta continued, “We work to prevent accounts showing suspicious behavior from following teens and avoid recommending teens to them. We also take other precautionary steps, like blurring potentially sensitive images sent in DMs and reminding teens of the risks of sharing them, and letting people know when they’re chatting to someone who may be in a different country.”
The company mentions both sextortion and suicide in their Safety Center, claiming they have resources to help, but is it enough?
They claim, “Sharing – or threatening to share – intimate images without consent is against Meta policies. Learn about steps you can take to remove the images, prevent them from being shared or re-shared and how to find support services. Sextortion is the threat to reveal intimate images to force you to do something you don’t want to do.”
The company now has a “partnership with Thorn” to offer “resources for those being threatened with sextortion.”
The dangers and risks of social media, especially for children, are well documented.
A report by Psychology Today states, “recent evidence suggests that children and teens, especially during early adolescence when brains are still developing and personal identities and sense of self-worth are forming, are especially sensitive to social pressures, peer opinions, and online social comparisons.”
As always, it is vital that parents take control of the children’s social media use and protect them from the dangers online.
Read Next: Is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Liable for Causing Social Media Addiction?
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
– Content: +4Share:
– Content: +1