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Social Media Victims Law Center World Mental Health Day lawsuit alleges social media companies design their products to be addictive and harmful to children on a global scale
The Complaint asserts social media usage resulted in sextortion, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, eating and substance use disorders, and radicalization of minors
LOS ANGELES – OCTOBER 10, 2024 – The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), a legal resource for parents of children and teenage victims harmed by social media addiction and social media fueled harms, has filed a lawsuit on World Mental Health Day on behalf of 11 families in the United States and Canada whose children, ages 12 to 19, suffered physical and mental harms that could be directly attributed to their use of social media products.
The lawsuit seeks to hold Meta, Inc., ByteDance Ltd., Google, LLC, YouTube, LLC, and Discord, Inc., legally accountable for purposefully designing and marketing a defective product that provides consumers with no means to report or protect themselves, while targeting children with addictive features and unwanted “friend” recommendations, resulting in sextortion, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, substance use disorders, radicalization, and more.
Included in the Complaint is never before seen evidence of Meta failing and refusing to act on repeated reports of sextortion.
“There can be no doubt that social media companies are preying on our children with a product that is designed to ‘hook’ them to their products like an addictive drug,” said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of SMVLC. “We’ve started to see a societal shift as parents, researchers, and governments are mobilizing to address the danger these companies pose to children around the world. This isn’t just a problem in the U.S., it’s an unprecedented mental health crisis on a global scale.”
“This lawsuit is based on a growing body of scientific research, including these companies own internal studies which draws direct lines between their conscious, intentional design choices and the mental health crisis affecting children around the world.”
The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County at 12:01 a.m. and marks the 338th case SMVLC has filed against social media companies as part of California’s Judicial Council Coordination Proceedings (JCCP). To date, there are 745 lawsuits included in the JCCP which is seeking to hold social media companies legally accountable for knowingly concealing the harm they cause children and teens.
SMVLC filed the lawsuits on behalf of the families of Amanda Todd, 15, of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada; Braden Markus, 15, of Lewis Center, OH; Harry Burke, 17, of Prince Edward Island, Canada; “G.B.”, currently 12, of Tishomingo County, MS; “J.S.”, currently 13, of Cook County, IL; “N.G.”, currently 14, of Richmond County, NY; “S.E.” and “P.E.”, both currently 15, of Douglas County, NE; “V.H.”, currently 17, of Charleston County, SC; Tyler Richardson, 19, of Troy, IL; and Owen Zimmer, 17, of Warwick and East Greenwich, RI.
In what is believed to be one of first reported sextortion deaths in North America, Amanda posted a video to YouTube detailing her experience being a victim of sextortion. She shared the following message one month before she took her own life:
“I’m struggling to stay in this world, because everything just touches me so deeply. I’m not doing this for attention. I’m doing this to be an inspiration and to show that I can be strong. I did things to myself to make pain go away, because I’d rather hurt myself then someone else. Haters are haters but please don’t hate, although im sure I’ll get them. I hope I can show you guys that everyone has a story, and everyones future will be bright one day, you just gotta pull through. I’m still here aren’t I ? (sic)”
Today (October 10, 2024) marks 12 years exactly from the date of Amanda’s death.
Each of the stories of the victims in the lawsuit is available upon request.
Amanda Todd
Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
Amanda, who was vibrant, creative, and loved to sing and dance, began using Facebook in 2008. Facebook was still new, and Amanda’s mother Carol believed that it was a fun and safe platform and had no reason to think it was dangerous.
Amanda and her friends began visiting Facebook chat rooms to meet new people. One night she was convinced to lift her shirt while in a chatroom and one of the viewers took a screenshot.
Then, a short time later, an adult stranger with no known connection to Amanda, Direct Messaged her on Facebook. Amanda never understood how he found her on Facebook or how he was able to determine that it was her in the screenshot.
The predator, who had more than 20 different Facebook accounts, began to harass Amanda and threatened to send the image to her friends, family and school if she did not provide additional pictures. She refused and he followed through on his threat, even making the image the profile picture on some of his accounts.
Amanda started suffering from anxiety, depression, and a panic disorder and began cutting herself. While she did not feel like she could stop using Facebook, she did try to block the predator and hide from him. She moved to a new school and made new friends.
However, he was able to track her down using Facebook at least four different times and continued to send the image to new friends and classmates.
In September 2012, Amanda posted a video to YouTube in which she used a series of flashcards to detail her struggle, bullying, suicidality, and self-harm. A month later, on October 10, 2012, she died by suicide at age 15.
Braden Markus
Lewis Center, OH
Brandon was described as a goofball who had an incredible smile that could light up a room. He made friends with everyone and excelled at sports. His dream was to play baseball in college and serve in the U.S. Army.
Braden first used Instagram in 2018, when he was 12, even though his parents did not allow it until he was 14.
On October 16, 2021, Braden played Friday night football. After the game the coach pulled him aside and told him that if he kept busting his butt like that then he would be the starting running back next year. Braden was excited to say the least and shared the great news with his family.
Then, on the morning of Sunday, October 17 at 11:01 am, Braden died by suicide. No one had any idea what happened and none of it made any sense. Braden’s family tried to unlock his cell phone, and asked Apple for help, but Apple refused. They eventually found someone who was able to start manually unlocking the device and 10 months later they got in.
What they found was that Brandon had been the victim of sextortion. A predator posing as a teenage girl had found Braden on Instagram and convinced him to send compromising photos. After obtaining the photos, the predator threatened to send to them to everyone Braden knew on Instagram.
At 10:30 a.m., Braden was working on his driver’s ed test; at 11:01 a.m., Instagram connected him to a stranger; and at 11:28 a.m., he was gone.
Braden felt helpless and on October 17, 2021, at 11:28 a.m., died by suicide.
Harry Burke
Prince Edward Island, Canada
Harry was described as a remarkable young man who was loved by his teachers, friends, and family. He was kind and went out of his way to ensure that everyone always felt welcomed. And he was true patriot to his country. Harry had finished cadets as a warrant officer, and at 16 joined the reserves. He planned on going to Kingston Ontario to the Royal Military College after high school. He once told his parents, “I want to change Canada someday; I want to make it better.”
Harry began using Instagram and Snapchat when he was 13 years old.
On April 24, 2023, Harry had just completed one of his final weekends of basic training for the Armed Forces reserves and was home with his parents and younger sister. He was tired that day, and his dad suggested he stay home from school. They did some work around the house together, talked, and enjoyed each other’s company.
That evening, Harry approached his father clearly upset. He said that he had “shared pictures and now this person wants money.”
Harry believed that the online predator Instagram connected him with was a young woman with romantic interest in him. Harry remained wary of exchanging photos on Instagram but thought it would be safer to do it on Snapchat.
The moment Harry sent his photos the predator began sextorting him. He also harassed Harry on Instagram and threatened to send the images to all of his online friends, family, and classmates.
Harry and his family decided to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the morning to report the incident. However, while having this discussion, Meta sent a push notification to Harry’s mother alerting her to a new Instagram message, which came from the predator and threatened to ruin her son. The predator also sent some of Harry’s photos to a military friend.
Despite his family’s love and support, Harry felt helpless and committed suicide on April 25, 2023.
“G.B.”
Tishomingo County, Mississippi
G.B., who is currently 12 years old, started using Snapchat and TikTok when she was nine. This despite the fact that U.S. federal law prohibits social media companies from allowing minors under the age of 13 to use these products.
Almost immediately, G.B. started to suffer from serious emotional, mental, and physical harm.
G.B. went from being a happy child to one who lost interest in everything but Snapchat and TikTok. She began having trouble sleeping and no longer wanted to be around family or friends. Her parents tried limiting her screentime but her addiction to using these Snapchat and TikTok was too strong, and she became a different person after she started using them.
She eventually began skipping meals and engaging in self-harm and was hospitalized for suicidal ideation.
“J.S.”
Cook County, Illinois
“J.S”, who is 13 years old, began using social media when she was just seven years old without her parents’ knowledge or consent. J.S. began to experience a severe decline in her mental health that coincided with her use of Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube including sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
“N.G.” currently is 14 and lives in
Richmond County, New York.
N.G., who is 14, was just 11 when she started using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Almost immediately after she started using these products, N.G. became addicted to these products and began suffering from sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, cutting, and suicidal ideation.
“S.E.” and “P.E.”
Douglas County, Nebraska
S.E. and P.E., who are each 15 years old, secretly opened their Instagram and TikTok accounts when they were 10 despite being told by their parents to stay off of social media. Their mother “J.E.” worked in the tech industry and wanted to wait until her children were older before allowing them to open social media accounts. She wouldn’t even allow them to have a mobile phone for fear they would use it to access social media platforms.
When schools went remote because of due to COVID, they purchased Google Chrome Books for their children to use for school. She followed all of Google’s instructions, setting the computers to their safest and most restrictive settings.
Despite these precautions, her children were able to use their Google Chromebooks to access Instagram and TikTok because they didn’t have any safety features to limit access to underaged children.
Both children developed harmful dependencies on these platforms. For S.E., this resulted in sleep deprivation, depression, body dysmorphia, anorexia and bulimia, and attempted suicide. S.E. received extensive inpatient treatment and doctors told her family that it was one of the most severe eating disorder cases they had ever seen.
P.E. experienced sleep deprivation, serious depression and anxiety that requires ongoing mental health services.
“V.H.”
Charleston County, South Carolina.
V.H., who is currently 17, started using TikTok when she was 12 years old. Her parents noticed small changes in her behavior and checked her TikTok feed. Unhappy with the types of videos TikTok was pushing towards their child, they made V.H. close the account, which she did.
They then allowed her to open up an Instagram account which had marketed itself as safe for 13-year-olds where teens could get ideas and share photos of outfits, fashion, and how they wanted to decorate their bedrooms, etc. What Meta failed to disclose to V.H. and her parents was Instagram’s addictive nature.
V.H. developed harmful dependencies on Instagram, ultimately resulting in sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, orthorexia, body dysmorphia, low self-esteem, and started cutting herself. She went from a child who enjoyed life, to one who suffers from debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. V.H. has been hospitalized multiple times and will continue to struggle with these mental health issues for the rest of her life.
Tyler Richardson
Troy, Illinois.
Tyler loved music and was an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan. He enjoyed playing basketball and making people smile with funny faces. He is described as sweet, inquisitive, and having a huge heart.
His family believes that he started using social media when he was 13, first with Facebook and Snapchat, and eventually with Instagram and TikTok. Tyler became dependent on these platforms and started showing symptoms of sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and anger.
He also developed a substance abuse problem after Snapchat began pushing drug menus and marijuana content to his feed on a constant basis.
Eventually his addiction to drugs led to Tyler ending up homeless. His parents did what they could to help, but when he came home, he would steal things and ultimately had to leave again. At one point and to feed his habit, Tyler stole a car and was arrested. His father brought him home and, over the next three weeks, Tyler stayed sober and tried to make a new start.
Unfortunately, what he couldn’t stop was his use of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok and, on July 3, 2023, Tyler died of drug poisoning or an overdose after purchasing drugs on Snapchat.
Owen Zimmer
Warwick and East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Owen was a happy child who was good with electronics. His grandfather was an electrical engineer, which was a passion they shared. He and Owen completed several engineering projects over the years including building a gaming computer when Owen was in middle school.
Amanda never saw technology as something inherently or necessarily dangerous.
Unbeknownst to her, Owen began using Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube when he was under 13, and Discord a year or two later, all of which led to sleep deprivation, depression, and anxiety.
Then, in 2020 and when Owen was 14, he got into trouble at school. COVID had started and he and a small group of other kids figured out how to shut down their high school server. Owen took the blame for the incident and was forced to leave the school and even faced criminal charges.
Owen tried to move on. He repeated his sophomore year of high school at a local, private school, and told his mother that he planned to do better and get into a good college. He got right back into sports and started a band club at school.
Eventually, these social media companies began to inundate Owen with content focused on extremism, white supremacism, and other hate speech to the point he came to believe that he had no choice but to take someone else’s life or take his own. They began to send him intense suicide-promoting content, including massive amounts of videos and posts relating to “LooksMaxxing” and “RopeMaxxing.”
On November 4, 2023, Owen was found dead in his room from suicide.
About the Social Media Victims Law Center
The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), socialmediavictims.org, was founded in 2021 to hold social media companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users. SMVLC seeks to apply principles of product liability to force social media companies to elevate consumer safety to the forefront of its economic analysis and design safer platforms to protect users from foreseeable harm.
About Matthew P. Bergman
Matthew P. Bergman is an attorney, law professor, philanthropist and community activist who has recovered over $1 billion on behalf of his clients. He is the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and Bergman Draper Oslund Udo law firm; a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School; and serves on the board of directors of nonprofit institutions in higher education, national security, civil rights, worker protection and the arts.
