US EditionParents of sextortion victim sue Instagram owner Meta
Parents allege Meta ignored safety features to protect teens from sextortion, prioritizing profit; Instagram linked to 3.5 million inappropriate interactions with children, lawsuit claims.
- Mark and Ros Dowey, parents of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., after their son's December 2023 death in Dunblane, Scotland, seeking punitive damages.
- Meta's own researchers and internal discussions reportedly warned leadership about grooming and sextortion, but executives rejected simple fixes like defaulting teen accounts to private in 2019, fearing engagement losses.
- The suit says the scammers, operating from west Africa, posed as a teenage girl then blackmailed Murray Dowey after he sent intimate images, while internal data found Instagram recommended 1.4 million teens to predators daily.
- The Social Media Victims Law Center filed the claim on behalf of the Doweys and the mother of Levi Maciejewski, vowing, 'We'll take it as far as we can,' as plaintiffs say their sons would be alive if fixes had been made.
- The case comes amid a sharp rise in sextortion reports, with Internet Watch Foundation and Childline showing a 72% increase, while Instagram said last year, `Sextortion is a horrific crime.
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Fox Business
The New York LedgerMeta sued after teen boys' suicides, families claim tech giant ignored 'sextortion' schemes
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).Two families filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Meta over their sons’ suicides, arguing that the tech giant failed to add proper safeguards to prevent sextortion schemes targeting teenagers on Instagram.Tricia Maciejewski, of Pennsylvania, and Rosalind and Mark Downey, of Scotlan…
The parents of a Scottish teenager have decided to bring Meta to trial for her son's suicide after suffering a case of sextorsion on her social network Instagram. The young man's family has initiated proceedings in the High Court of Delaware (United States), where the headquarters of the technology company owned by Mark Zuckerberg is located.Continue reading...
Two families - one in the United States and one in Scotland - have filed a lawsuit against Meta, an Instagram-owned company, accusing her of gross negligence and ignoring for years a known pattern of sexual blackmail (sextortion) that has led to the death of teenagers.Read more]]>
Evening Standard
perspectivemedia.comParents of ‘sextortion’ victim who took own life sue Instagram owners Meta
Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, died in 2023 after being tricked online.
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