Overview
- Filed this week in Delaware Superior Court, the wrongful‑death suit by the Social Media Victims Law Center represents the families of 16‑year‑old Murray Dowey of Scotland and 13‑year‑old Levi Maciejewski of Pennsylvania.
- The complaint alleges Meta prioritized engagement over safety and cites internal findings that researchers warned since 2019 about adult predators exploiting Instagram’s design.
- Plaintiffs point to internal figures including 3.5 million profiles involved in inappropriate interactions with children in 2019 and 1.4 million teen recommendations to potentially problematic accounts in a single day in 2022.
- The suit targets features such as “Accounts You May Follow” and sharing of follower/following data, and claims Meta resisted defaulting teen accounts to private and blocking unsolicited adult DMs.
- Meta calls sextortion a horrific crime and says it has made under‑16 accounts private at signup since 2021, restricts suspicious adults from contacting teens, blurs sensitive images in DMs, and works with law enforcement, as the case joins other pending suits over sextortion on Instagram.