The families of two teenage boys who tragically died by suicide have filed a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, claiming that the company ignored the growing threat of sexual blackmail schemes, commonly referred to as “sextortion,” targeting teens on Instagram.
NBC News reports that in a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the families of two teenage boys who died by suicide are taking Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to court. The plaintiffs, who are from Pennsylvania and Scotland, allege that Meta has disregarded the increasing danger posed by “sextortion” scams that target teenagers on the popular social media platform.
According to the lawsuit, the two boys, Levi Maciejewski, 13, from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, Scotland, fell victim to similar sextortion schemes despite being thousands of miles apart. Sextortion schemes involve online scammers meticulously studying public social media profiles to gather information about their targets, then pose as flirtatious peers to gain the victim’s trust. The scammers use stolen or AI-generated images to trick the target into sending their own intimate photos, then threaten to embarass the target in public if they don’t continue sexual contact or pay sums of money. Sextortion schemes have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reporting over 33,000 cases in 2024 alone, and nearly the same number in the first six months of this year.
This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions that aim to hold Instagram accountable for what some users describe as deadly scams occurring on its platform. Meta is currently facing at least four other sextortion-related lawsuits, which claim that Instagram is a defective product and has been negligent in addressing the sextortion issue for years.
Matthew Bergman, the lead attorney for the families, stated, “This was known. This was not an accident. This was not a coincidence. 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.”
Meta responded to the subject of sextortion in a statement provided to Breitbart News:
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. Since 2021, we’ve placed teens under 16 into private accounts when they sign up for Instagram, which means they have to approve any new followers. 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.
Last year, Meta instituted teen account protections for users under the age of 18, which include enhanced privacy and the company’s strictest messaging standards.
The lawsuit argues that while Instagram has implemented some design changes for minors in recent years to address extortion, these changes came too late and that Instagram should be held responsible for the deaths of the two teenagers. Tricia Maciejewski, Levi’s mother, said in an interview that she did not think it would be possible for a total stranger to message her 13-year-old son on Instagram before his death.
The lawsuit cites internal corporate records from Meta, which have become known through other ongoing lawsuits against the company, to support its arguments. These records, which remain sealed to the public, allegedly reveal years of internal debate within Meta over whether to make teen Instagram accounts private by default. The lawsuit claims that Meta’s growth team, responsible for expanding the business, opposed privacy-by-default for teen accounts and dominated internal decision-making, often prioritizing engagement and growth over public safety concerns raised by other teams within the company.
As the case moves forward, the families hope to hold Meta accountable for what they believe is a defective product that has led to the tragic loss of their children. Tricia Maciejewski compared Instagram’s alleged failings to companies that have produced unsafe products in the past, such as faulty car seats or playground equipment, emphasizing the need for swift action when a product is found to be harmful to children.
Read more at NBC News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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