bbcA Scottish couple whose teenage son took his own life after being blackmailed on Instagram are suing the platform’s owner, Meta, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK.
Murray Dowey, from Dunblane, was 16 years old when he was a victim of sextortion in December 2023.
Her parents have now taken legal action against Meta in a US court seeking punitive damages claiming Instagram was unsafe.
Meta, which also owns Facebook, said it supports law enforcement in prosecuting the criminals behind sextortion, adding that “we continue to fight them in our applications on multiple fronts.”
Murray is believed to have been set up by criminals from West Africa.
Murray died at his Dunblane home in December 2023 after being attacked by scammers posing as a girl.
He was tricked into sending intimate images of himself and told they would be exposed to his family if he didn’t pay up.
His parents’ lawyers now claim that Meta “knew the security features that would prevent sextortion” before his death and instead “prioritized profits.”
The company had previously said it had made real changes to Instagram, such as introducing teen accounts with built-in protections and giving parents the power to control their children’s online experiences.
Ros Dowey said they are taking legal action to get justice for Murray and “all the other guys” who have taken their lives after being sextorted on Instagram.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said: “We feel it is time for Meta to be held to account for what they have done to many young people.
“There is now evidence that Meta knew at least five years before Murray died that their products were unsafe, there were design decisions they made that caused predators to easily find the young and then be able to extort money from them.”
A Meta spokesperson said that since 2021, it had placed teenagers under the age of 16 on private accounts when they signed up for Instagram, meaning they had to approve new followers.
They said: “We work to prevent accounts that display suspicious behavior from following teenagers and avoid recommending teenagers to them.
“We’re also taking other precautionary measures, such as blurring potentially sensitive images sent in direct messages and reminding teens of the risks of sharing them, and letting people know when they’re chatting with someone who may be in a different country.”
But Dowey said Meta’s protections for teens don’t go far enough since only new users’ accounts are made private if they are under 16, meaning Murray’s account was not affected by the change.
He said algorithms created on the Meta sites were “allowing adults to connect with children, and pushing them toward them” and that safety consultants working within the company were “begging” for change.
He added: “You always suspected that people like Meta were profits above all, but to see it written down and see that they probably could have saved your son was like a punch in the gut. It makes me so angry and angry.”
He wants Meta to recognize that his son and many others were “collateral damage of greed” and for better safety devices to be installed immediately.
‘Yahoo Boys’
The lawsuit, brought by the Social Media Victims Legal Center (SMVLC) on behalf of Mark and Ros Dowey, is believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK.
Murray’s parents are named along with a woman, Tricia Maciejewski, of Pennsylvania. His son, Levi Maciejewski, took his own life at the age of 13.
The SMVLC is also representing four families in the United Kingdom who are suing TikTok, as they believe their children died for participating in viral trends on the video-sharing platform.
Sextortion has become big business in Nigeria involving thousands of young men nicknamed “yahoo boys.”
Guides on how to get involved in crime are openly for sale online, as a BBC News investigation revealed last year.
A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, an American advocacy organization, on the Yahoo Boys’ toll is cited in court documents filed by lawyers representing the two families.
The report calls the problem a “digital pandemic.”
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