Meta Lawsuit: Facebook & Instagram

Facebook and Instagram, two of the four most popular social media platforms, are both owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. These platforms have become an essential part of the culture and daily lifestyle of today’s youngsters and teens. 

Unfortunately, there are many potential dangers using online social media, and the owners of these platforms bear a responsibility for its proper use. However, Meta has not taken this responsibility seriously, resulting in alleged harm, injury, and worse for their young users. 

As such, more and more people are now filing social media lawsuits against Meta Platforms.

The Social Media Victims Law Center works to hold social media companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users by applying principles of product liability. In fact, the Social Media Victims Law Center is involved in several lawsuits against Meta.

In the case of Rodriguez v. Meta Platforms, eleven-year-old Selena Rodriguez struggled with addiction to Instagram and Snapchat for two years.

Selena’s social media use led to:

• Poor self-esteem
• Sleep deprivation
• Eating disorders
• Depression
• Explicit correspondence with men
• Bullying

Her addiction finally ended with her suicide on July 21, 2021. 

In the case of Heffner v. Meta Platforms, seventeen-year-old Liam Birchfield’s dream to join the Air Force was cut short when he used a firearm to take his own life on July 6, 2021. Liam became addicted to Instagram and Snapchat during middle school and spent hours every morning scrolling through endless online feeds, communicating with strangers, and viewing material about firearms. His addiction led to sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, and ultimately his suicide. 

In the case of Dawley v. Meta Platforms, active high school senior Christopher James “CJ” Dawley had a bright future, loved the outdoors, sports, and fixing cars. However, he developed an addiction to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat which led to an obsession with body image and sleep deprivation. CJ suffered with his social media addiction for two years before committing suicide by gunshot on January 4, 2015. He was only seventeen.

In the case of Doffing v. Meta Platforms, Brittney Doffing and her minor daughter M.K. are suing Meta and Snap Inc. for the psychological harm M.K. experienced as a result of using Instagram and Snapchat. M.K. became addicted within just two weeks of use and experienced:

• A sharp decline in academic performance
• Sexually explicit communications from men
• Sleep deprivation
• Two psychiatric hospitalizations

Restricted access at home led to multiple instances of her running away to gain access.

In the case of Spence v. Meta Platforms, Alexis Spence had been a happy, well-adjusted child who, at only 11 years old, surrendered to peer pressure and accessed Instagram while at school without her parents’ knowledge or permission. Instagram taught her to bypass parental controls and increase her social media use without her parents’ knowledge, despite their diligent efforts to restrict access. After developing suicidal thoughts and patterns of self-harm, Alexis ended up needing inpatient treatment for eating disorders and suffered permanent physical and psychological effects that required the use of a service dog.

All of these social media lawsuits point to Meta’s strict liability and negligence for the harm experienced from using their products. 

First, Meta’s products are defective by design.

These design defects are especially damaging because no reasonable parent or user would assume that a harmful product would be created intentionally. However:

• Meta’s products lack safeguards that could prevent minors from exposure to harmful and abusive content. Such features could be easily included.
• Meta allows users under thirteen to access its platforms without parental consent in violation of federal laws. They do not require age or identity authentication.
• Meta’s products lack parental controls. Even worse, they are intentionally designed to obstruct parental monitoring and restriction.
• Meta’s products intentionally recommend and promote harmful content that can exploit young users.
• Meta’s products have no mechanisms that allow users or parents to report sex offenders to law enforcement.
• Meta intentionally designed addictive products that exploit and manipulate the incomplete brain development of youths.
• Meta platforms lack a notification system for parents when teens and children engage in problematic use. This use can easily be detected by the platforms’ algorithms.

Second, Meta’s products are marketed without proper warnings or instructions to parents or users. Meta’s users can’t reasonably be expected to know that the products have:

• The potential for addiction
• The risk of sleep deprivation
• The lack of mechanisms to report minors’ screen time to their parents

Third, Meta displayed negligence in marketing harmful products to youths without conducting research or warning the public. Meta hasn’t investigated or restricted the use of their products by sexual predators. They’ve also failed to provide parents with tools to ensure its platforms are used in a safe and limited manner.

Meta might claim that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects it from liability, since Section 230 states that social media companies can’t be held liable for what users post. 

However, these lawsuits don’t allege that Meta is liable for content posted by third parties. Meta is being sued for its own actions in using and promoting third-party content. 

There are helpful resources available to parents about addiction to Meta products. If your teen has been harmed by social media, you can fight back! Contact the Social Media Victims Law Center today to schedule a free confidential case evaluation.