On December 17, 2025, the families of two teenage boys—one from Pennsylvania and the other from Scotland—filed a landmark lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram, alleging that the tech giant's negligence and design choices played a direct role in the tragic suicides of their sons. The suit, filed in Delaware Superior Court, accuses Meta of ignoring the mounting threat of sexual blackmail schemes, known as sextortion, that have proliferated on Instagram despite repeated warnings and internal evidence of the risk.
The plaintiffs, the families of Levi Maciejewski, 13, from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, Scotland, claim their sons were targeted by nearly identical scams—thousands of miles apart—by predators who posed as romantic interests on Instagram. These scammers solicited intimate photos from the boys and then threatened to expose them unless the teens sent more images or paid an extortion fee. According to the lawsuit, Levi was targeted within just 48 hours of creating his first Instagram account in August 2024, while Murray, who began using Instagram at age 10, fell victim in December 2023.
As reported by The New York Times, the lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions seeking to hold Meta accountable for what critics describe as lethal flaws in its platform’s design and oversight. The suit claims that Instagram’s default privacy settings, which for years left teens’ follower lists public and allowed direct messages from strangers, created a uniquely vulnerable environment for young users. It further alleges that Meta’s internal records, newly available due to other ongoing lawsuits, show the company was well aware of these dangers as far back as 2019.
Matthew Bergman, lead attorney for the families and founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, did not mince words in his assessment of Meta’s responsibility. “This was known. This was not an accident. This was not a coincidence. This was a foreseeable consequence of the deliberate design decisions that Meta made. Their own documents show that they were very aware of this extortion phenomenon, and they simply chose to put their profits over the safety of young people,” Bergman told The New York Times. He added, “That conscious decision to connect random strangers to children has cost families their sons and daughters, turning Instagram into the epicenter of sextortion-related youth suicides.”
Meta, for its part, has acknowledged the severity of the issue but has not directly addressed the specific claims in the lawsuit. In a statement to The Daily Mail and other outlets, a company spokesperson said, “Sextortion is a horrific crime. We support law enforcement to prosecute the criminals behind it, and we continue to fight them on our apps on multiple fronts.” Meta maintains that since 2021, it has placed teens under 16 into private accounts by default and has implemented features to prevent suspicious accounts from following minors, blur sensitive images in direct messages, and alert users when they may be communicating with someone from a different country.
However, the lawsuit disputes Meta’s timeline and the effectiveness of these changes. It alleges that the company did not fully implement private-by-default settings for all teen accounts until 2024, leaving millions of young users exposed in the interim. The suit also points to internal Meta debates, revealed in sealed corporate records, in which the company’s growth team reportedly opposed stricter privacy measures for teens due to concerns about engagement and user growth. According to the lawsuit, a private-by-default setting could have prevented 5.4 million unwanted interactions daily on Instagram direct messages—a staggering figure that underscores the scale of the problem.
The FBI has repeatedly warned about the surge of sextortion scams targeting American teens, with criminal networks in West Africa and Southeast Asia often behind the schemes. An alert issued last year by the agency noted that at least 36 teen boys had died by suicide after being victimized by such scams, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported more than 23,000 cases of financial sextortion in just the first half of 2025—a 70 percent increase over the previous year. Most victims, according to the center, did not have prior mental health conditions or suicidal ideation, highlighting the acute vulnerability of teens caught in these traps.
Levi Maciejewski’s story is especially harrowing. According to the lawsuit and his mother Tricia, Levi created his Instagram account on August 18, 2024. Within two days, he was contacted by a predator posing as a young girl, who convinced him to send compromising photos and then demanded $300, threatening to share the images with his friends and family if he did not comply. Levi, with only $37.18 and some cash on his nightstand, felt “vulnerable and trapped as the result of his use of Instagram,” the suit alleges. On August 20, Levi died by suicide. “We were an ordinary family with typical teenage kids, and our lives have been irreparably changed by this unfathomable crime. Now, we are a grieving family trying to find our way without Maciejewski,” Tricia wrote in a public post.
Murray Dowey’s experience was tragically similar. The 16-year-old, described by his family as the “peacemaker” and “the glue that held it together,” had been using Instagram since age 10, circumventing the platform’s age restrictions—a common practice among young users, according to his family. Hours before his suicide, Murray had been watching television with his family, unaware of the devastating message that awaited him from an extortionist on Instagram.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of making “false and misleading statements designed to convince children and parents that Instagram was safe for teens at the same time that internal testing showed that Instagram was matchmaking children to adult predators.” It seeks damages for pain, suffering, and punitive damages, and demands a jury trial. The legal action is seen as part of a broader reckoning for social media companies, which are increasingly being scrutinized by lawmakers, parents, and advocacy groups over their handling of child safety and mental health.
Meta’s internal records, which remain sealed but have been referenced in court filings, reportedly reveal years of debate within the company over whether to prioritize privacy and safety or user engagement and growth. The lawsuit cites a Meta employee from the growth team expressing concern that safety improvements would “lead to a potentially untenable problem with engagement and growth.” While Meta has dismissed the use of such internal quotes as “cherry-picked,” the very existence of these discussions has fueled calls for greater transparency and accountability.
The Social Media Victims Law Center, representing the families, has previously filed lawsuits against other tech giants, including TikTok and Snap, over similar allegations of negligence and harm to young users. The Delaware filing is strategically significant, as the state falls under the jurisdiction of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has recently allowed similar claims against tech companies to proceed despite the broad legal protections typically afforded to online platforms.
The deaths of Levi Maciejewski and Murray Dowey have galvanized a movement among parents and advocates demanding stricter safeguards for children online. Tricia Maciejewski, reflecting on her son’s life and legacy, said, “He was right on the verge of a beautiful, beautiful life. So, I’m pretty angry. I get angry for his brother and his classmates and his future that he got robbed of.” The families hope that by sharing their heartbreak, they can raise awareness of the dangers of sextortion and push for changes that will protect other children from suffering similar fates.
As the legal battle unfolds, the case stands as a stark reminder of the urgent need for tech companies to balance innovation and growth with the fundamental responsibility of keeping their youngest users safe. For the families at the center of this lawsuit, the fight is about more than accountability—it’s about ensuring that no other parent has to endure the same devastating loss.
