"We began to lose her little by little": a family sues Meta for causing eating disorders and suicidal ideas to her daughter

By Jesselyn

A preteen's "addictive" use of Instagram caused her to have an eating disorder, self-harm and suicidal thoughts for several years, according to a lawsuit against the platform's parent company, Meta. 

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, heavily cites the so-called

, a set of internal Meta investigative documents leaked last fall that reveal the tech giant knew that Instagram negatively influencing body image and other mental health issues among teenage girls in particular.

The case was filed on behalf of Alexis Spence, who was able to create her first Instagram account at the age of 11 without her parents' knowledge and in violation of the platform's minimum age requirement of 13.

Alexis Spence holds her therapy dog, Draco. Spence family via NBC News.

The lawsuit alleges that Instagram's artificial intelligence engine almost immediately directed the girl, then a fifth grader, into an echo chamber of content that glorified anorexia and self-cutting, and also systematically fostered her addiction to using Instagram. of the application.

The lawsuit was brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a Seattle-based group that advocates for families of teens affected by the Internet.

Now 19, the once "confident and happy" Spence has been hospitalized for depression, anxiety and anorexia and "struggles to stay in recovery every day" as a result of "the harmful content and features that Instagram promoted and provided tirelessly in his effort to increase participation," the lawsuit document states.

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It is the first legal appeal of its kind that builds on the Facebook documents and exposes the real human harm behind its conclusions, Spence's lawyers say.

The suit also releases unpublished documents from the leaks, including one in which Meta identified "tweens" as "herd animals" who "want to find communities they can fit into."

The lawyers argue that these documents

The Spence family, from left, Jeffrey, Ryan, Alexis, Kathleen and their dog, Draco. Spence family via NBC News.

"If you look at the extensive research that [Meta] did, they knew exactly what they were doing to the kids, and they kept doing it," said Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew P. Bergman, who represents Spence and her family.

"I wish I could say that Alexis's case is aberrational. It's not. The only aberration is that she survived."

Bergman also advised Tammy Rodriguez, an Enfield, Connecticut, woman who filed a lawsuit in January against Meta and Snap, Snapchat's parent company, over the companies' alleged role in the suicide of her 11-year-old daughter last summer. .

Liza Crenshaw, a spokeswoman for Instagram, declined to comment on Spence's lawsuit, citing that it is "active litigation."

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But in a Facebook post that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published on October 5, 2021, following the early release of the leaked documents, he wrote: "I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the kinds of experiences I want my kids to have. and others have online, and it's very important to me that everything we build is safe and good for children.

She also specifically referred to reports showing that teens suffered more from "anxiety, sadness, and eating problems," noting that "a higher number of teen girls who said they struggled with that issue also ensured that Instagram made those tough times better in instead of making them worse."

Katie Derkits, a spokeswoman for Snap, said in part in a statement: "While we cannot comment on the details of the active litigation, nothing is more important to us than the well-being of our community."

She added: "We work closely with many mental health organizations to provide in-app tools and resources for Snapchatters as part of our ongoing work to keep our community safe."

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At the height of his Instagram addiction, Spence said he had multiple accounts, accessing them for hours in the middle of the night so as not to alert his parents, who had become concerned about his increasingly hostile and atypical behavior.

On one occasion, she punched a hole in the wall when they tried to take the device away from her, the lawsuit states, which attributes her behavior to "Instagram's addictive design and product features."

In an interview, Spence recalled how her algorithm-curated Instagram explore page was filled for years with "thin" or "thin-inspired" photos of extremely skinny young girls and models, which she then saved. to look at them as "motivation" whenever he was hungry.

Instagram also recommended, based on her algorithm, accounts to follow, including many that offered instructions for bulimic purges and crash diets, according to the lawsuit.

At age 12, Spence drew herself crying on the floor next to her phone with the words "stupid ugly fat girl" on the screen and "kill yourself" in a thought bubble.

At age 15, she was receiving emergency psychiatric treatment for her anorexia, purging and suicidal ideation, according to her lawsuit.

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"It was definitely really traumatizing," Spence said in an interview.

"These are all images that are now in my head."

The

, leaked by the social network's former product manager, Frances Haugen, made public the internal studies Meta had conducted over the previous three years.

The firm's findings included that Instagram makes one in three teenage users feel worse about their bodies, that the app is addictive by design, and that the algorithm drives vulnerable users toward content that encourages eating disorders.  

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, reported similar results amid leaks when his office used a fake Instagram account to impersonate a teenage girl.

"Our research has shown, in real time, that Instagram recommendations will continue to grab onto a person's insecurities, a young woman's vulnerabilities about her body, and drag them into dark places that glorify eating disorders and self-harm," he said. Blumenthal at that time.

"That's what Instagram does."

Haugen argued that the social network's promotion of harmful content is part of what makes it so addictive.

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"What's super tragic is that Facebook's own research says that as these young women start consuming this eating disorder content they get more and more depressed and it actually makes them use the app more," she said during an interview. on CBS's 60 Minutes in October 2021, days before addressing Congress to warn of the damage Instagram has allegedly done to the mental health of its younger users. 

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Her testimony made Spence's parents realize that Meta was leading their daughter to this content.

The couple of teachers assured that they had been struggling for a long time to understand what had happened to him.

The teen now lives with them on Long Island along with her assigned therapy dog, Draco, who alerts them to her self-injurious behaviors and eating disorders, and makes sure she's never alone. 

"We started losing her little by little, piece by piece," Spence's mother, Kathleen, said in an interview.

"There was nothing we could do because we were fighting a multi-billion dollar corporation and we have two different interests, and her interest is not my daughter."