Family Sues Facebook, Blames Instagram for Daughter’s Eating Disorder

The family of a preteen girl is claiming that Facebook’s Instagram app resulted in her suffering from an eating disorder, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts according to a recently filed lawsuit.

NBC News reports that a lawsuit was recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California this week by a family blaming Facebook (now known as Meta) and its Instagram platform for their daughter’s eating disorder, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

The lawsuit cites the Facebook Papers, a leaked trove of internal research documents that showed the company was aware that Instagram was having a negative effect on the body-image and mental-health issues of young teenagers, particularly young girls.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.”

…

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.

“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

The case was filed on behalf of Alexis Spence, who first created her Instagram account at age 11 without her parent’s permission, violating the platform’s minimum age requirement of 13. The lawsuit claims that Instagram’s algorithm directed Spence into an echo chamber that glorified anorexia and self-harm and promoted her addiction.

The lawsuit was filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a Seattle-based group advocating on the behalf of families of teens harmed by social media. Spence, who is now 19-year-old, has previously been hospitalized for depression, anxiety, and anorexia and “fights to stay in recovery every day” as a result of “the harmful content and features Instagram relentlessly promoted and provided to her in its effort to increase engagement,” according to the lawsuit.

Matthew P. Bergman, who is representing Spence and her family, commented: “If you look at the extensive research that it [Meta] performed, they knew exactly what they were doing to kids, and they kept doing it. I wish I could say that Alexis’ case is aberrational. It’s not. The only aberration is that she survived.”

Bergman is also representing Tammy Rodriguez, an Enfield, Connecticut, woman who filed a lawsuit against Facebook (now Meta) and Snap in January over the companies’ alleged contribution to her 11-year-old daughter’s suicide last summer.

Read more at NBC News here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com