SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) — A lawsuit alleges Facebook, Snapchat and other social media platforms caused a minor girl to face addiction, exploitation and serious mental health issues.
C.U. and S.U., filed a complaint Oct. 6 in the Superior Court of California County of San Francisco against Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook Inc., SNAP Inc., Roblox Corporation, Discord Inc., and Does 1-100 alleging negligence and other claims.
According to the plaintiffs' complaint, S.U., who is currently 13 years old, began playing Roblox when she was nine or 10 and that unbeknownst to C.U., her parent, she was befriended on the Roblox game by an 18-year-old male during the 2020 pandemic who convinced her to download Discord.
The plaintiffs claim that the male, "Charles," and his friends exploited and abused S.U. for months and encouraged her to drink and take prescription drugs. They also allege that S.U. also developed an addiction to her cell phone as well as Instagram and Snapchat in addition to facing exploitation that was facilitated and enabled by Meta, Roblox and Discord products and features.
They further allege that S.U. attempted suicide in July and August of 2020 due to the "harms caused by the defendant's products." The plaintiffs claim that S.U. was put into a residential treatment program due to her addictions and was sexually assaulted by another resident while in the treatment program.
The plaintiffs claim the defendants know their products are causing deaths and mental health harms due to to their addictive, defective and dangerous products used by a significant number of minors without any warning to users or parents.
The plaintiffs seek monetary relief, trial by jury and all other just relief. They are represented by Laura Marquez-Garrett, Matthew Bergman and Glenn Draper of the Social Media Victims Law Center in Seattle; Kevin Loew of Waters Kraus & Paul in El Segundo, California; Christopher Seeger and Christopher Ayers of Seeger Weiss in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey; and Robert Klonoff of Robert Klnoff LLC in Portland, Oregon.
Superior Court of California County of San Francisco case number CGC-22-602249