Meta, Snap sued over social media ‘addicted’ girl’s suicide
Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc. are to blame for the suicide of an 11-year-old who was addicted to Instagram and Snapchat, the girl’s mother alleged in a lawsuit.
The woman claims her daughter Selena Rodriguez struggled for two years with an “extreme addiction” to Meta’s photo-sharing platform and Snap’s messaging app before taking her life last year.
The complaint in San Francisco federal court isn’t the first lawsuit to blame a youth’s suicide on social media, but it comes at a sensitive time for platforms that engage millions of young people worldwide.
In November, a group of U.S. state attorneys general announced an investigation of Instagram over its efforts to draw children and young adults, taking aim at the risks the social network may pose to their mental health and well-being. The states’ probe was launched after a former Facebook employee turned whistle-blower testified in Congress that the company knew about, but didn’t disclose, harmful impacts of its services like Instagram.
The backlash against social media isn’t limited to the U.S. The father of a 14-yearold in the U.K. touched off a firestorm when he blamed her 2017 suicide partly on Instagram. The company told the BBC that it doesn’t allow content that promotes self-harm.
“We are devastated to hear of Selena’s passing and our hearts go out to her family,” a Snap spokesperson said Friday in an emailed statement. “While we can’t comment on the specifics of active litigation, nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community.”
Meta and Snap knew or should have known that “their social media products were harmful to a significant percentage of their minor users,” according to Thursday’s lawsuit. “In other words, defendants intentionally created an attractive nuisance to young children, but failed to provide adequate safeguards from the harmful effects they knew were occurring on their wholly owned and controlled digital premises.”
Meta representatives didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
A Meta spokesperson said in November that allegations the company puts profit over safety are false and that “we continue to build new features to help people who might be dealing with negative social comparisons or body image issues.”