Safety Fixes Rejected, Suit Claims
The parents argue Meta could have adopted straightforward safeguards — such as making teen accounts private by default or blocking direct messages from adult strangers — but instead rejected those options to protect engagement metrics.
Rather than leaning on engineers to implement safety-first changes, the complaint says, Meta turned to its growth team, which concluded that a private-by-default policy could cost the platform 1.5 million monthly active teen users per year.
A Pattern With Deadly Consequences
The lawsuits say both boys were approached by adults posing as young girls, persuaded to send sexually explicit images and then blackmailed with threats to distribute the material to friends and family.
Both M.D. and L.M. died by suicide after the alleged extortion, their parents say, linking the tragedy directly to Instagram’s recommendation system.
The complaints also accuse Meta of compounding the harm once sextortion began. Parents allege reporting systems were ineffective and that the company sometimes failed to remove reported child sexual abuse material for days.
