Mark Zuckerberg built an empire connecting people across the globe.
But that empire just enabled something unspeakable.
And Meta was hit with a lawsuit for one sick crime that has Mark Zuckerberg trembling in fear.
Two families from opposite sides of the world just filed a wrongful death lawsuit that exposes what Meta knew about predators hunting teenagers on Instagram.
Tricia Maciejewski of Pennsylvania and Rosalind and Mark Downey of Scotland lost their sons to the same nightmare.
And they're armed with Meta's own internal documents proving the tech giant knew exactly what was happening and chose profits over children's lives anyway.
Instagram Turned Into A Hunting Ground For Predators
Levi Maciejewski was 13 years old when he joined Instagram.
Two days later, he was dead.
A scammer pretending to be a girl tricked Levi into sending private photos, then extorted him for $300 with threats to share the images with his family and friends.¹
Trapped and terrified, Levi took his own life on August 20, 2024.
Across the Atlantic, 16-year-old Murray Downey suffered the exact same fate in December 2023.²
A 2022 internal audit found that Instagram's "Accounts You May Follow" tool suggested 1.4 million accounts to teenage users in a single day that were potentially engaging in inappropriate interactions with minors.³
That's not a bug. That's a feature working exactly as Meta designed it.
Meta's Own Researchers Warned About The Danger In 2019
The smoking gun comes from Meta's own safety team.
Internal documents show that as early as 2019, Meta researchers found 3.5 million profiles engaged in "inappropriate interactions with children" through Instagram direct messages.⁴
Those same researchers recommended making teen accounts private by default, which would have prevented 5.4 million unwanted direct messages every single day.⁵
Meta's executives said no.
The growth team argued that improving safety would "lead to a potentially untenable problem with engagement and growth."⁶
Translation: protecting children would hurt the bottom line.
Meta finally rolled out default privacy settings for all teen accounts in late 2024 – after both Levi and Murray were already dead.⁷
The Sextortion Crisis Is Exploding Across Instagram
The Internet Watch Foundation recorded a 72% increase in confirmed child sextortion cases in early 2025 compared to the previous year.⁸
Thorn, a nonprofit fighting child sexual abuse, found one in seven victims attempted self-harm after being blackmailed.⁹
At least 36 teenage boys have died by suicide after falling victim to sextortion schemes – with most incidents occurring on Instagram.¹⁰
Meta knew Instagram was the "most common vector sextortion criminals use to target victims" according to research from the Network Contagion Research Institute.¹¹
The company's own internal surveys found 13% of 13-to-15-year-olds received unwanted sexual advances on Instagram every single week.¹²
Despite having this data, Meta waited until 2024 to implement comprehensive protections that their safety researchers had begged them to add five years earlier.
Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center representing both families, didn't mince words.
"For years, Meta knew Instagram was a hunting ground for predators, yet chose to protect engagement metrics over children's lives," Bergman said. "That conscious decision to connect random strangers to children has cost families their sons and daughters."¹³
Every parent putting their child on Instagram assumed a trillion-dollar company cared more about safety than advertising revenue.
Meta's internal documents prove that assumption was dead wrong.
¹ Social Media Victims Law Center, "Lawsuit Alleges Meta Prioritized Engagement Over Child Safety," Business Wire, December 17, 2025.
² NBC News, "Two families sue Meta over teens' deaths by suicide, citing 'sextortion' scams," December 17, 2025.
³ Fox Business, "Meta sued after teen boys' suicides, families claim tech giant ignored 'sextortion' schemes," December 19, 2025.
⁴ Morningstar, "Social Media Victims Law Center Lawsuit," December 17, 2025.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ AI CERTs News, "Meta Lawsuit Highlights Teen Sextortion Safety Crisis," December 22, 2025.
⁷ The Hill, "Meta sued over teens' sextortion suicides," December 18, 2025.
⁸ AI CERTs News, "Meta Lawsuit Highlights Teen Sextortion Safety Crisis," December 22, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ NBC News, "Two families sue Meta over teens' deaths by suicide, citing 'sextortion' scams," December 17, 2025.
¹¹ Morningstar, "Social Media Victims Law Center Lawsuit," December 17, 2025.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Fox Business, "Meta sued after teen boys' suicides, families claim tech giant ignored 'sextortion' schemes," December 19, 2025.
