A mother is the latest to take social media companies to court, claiming their practices got her daughter addicted to social media with devastating effects. Jenny Young has been digging deeper into this lawsuit and she spoke with that mother tonight.
In March of 2020, in the days leading up to Oregon’s first stay-home order, Brittany Doffing’s daughter turned 14 while the state was essentially shut down. Doffing says her outgoing teen was isolated from friends, so she bought her a smartphone. She lost all connections with everybody through school, and that’s how a lot of her friends interacted through cell phones. Shortly after that purchase, life for Doffing and her family was turned upside down. It happened very, very fast.
She says her daughter developed an addiction to social media, specifically Instagram and Snapchat. Doffing says the obsession was and still is incredibly destructive. She will be on it all the time. She will run away to go to somebody else’s house to get on Snapchat, to get on Instagram. She will ask random strangers — she’s gone up and got their phone and asked them if she could use their phone to log into her Snapchat account.
With the help of Seattle-based law firm Social Media Victims Law Center and attorney Matthew Bergman, they filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Oregon against Instagram owner Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, and Snap Incorporated, owners of Snapchat. The suit is seeking relief including pain and suffering, medical care expenses, and punitive damages. “I mean, we are in for a long, difficult fight,” and the prospect of compensation is very long and far away, and it’s not what’s motivating us to go forward, the 31-page complaint says.
The teen has been hospitalized twice for psychiatric episodes, triggered by Doffing’s attempts to take away or restrict the use of Instagram and Snapchat. The complaint claims the companies generate profit based on the amount of time a user spends on the app, and compares the design to a slot machine marketed toward teenagers, saying its algorithms are psychologically manipulative. Kids lack the emotional maturity and the neurological maturity to respond appropriately to these kinds of stimuli.
You might remember last fall when a former Facebook insider turned whistleblower testified before Congress, saying the company’s practices are harmful to children. “The choices being made inside of Facebook are disastrous for our children.”
Legally Edited and Fact-Checked by:
Matthew P. Bergman, Founding Attorney, SMVLC
